Polaris
by JamesParker
Summary: They were doing laundry, and as he emptied out his jean pockets there it was—the last of the Dream Root, twisted in the corner of a sandwich bag. Dean thought it would be funny. There was just enough for a little walk in Sam's head. Bad idea! Wincest.
1. Chapter 1

Title: Polaris  
>Author: James Parker Lombard<br>Rating M: Language, Wincest (Sam/Dean? and maybe a Sam/Dean later?), Violence  
>SpoilersSet: Season 3 between Ep.10 "Dream a Little Dream" and Ep. 11 "Mystery Spot."  
>Characters: Dean and Sam Winchester (Chapter One, Dean POV)<br>Word Count: 8584  
>Summary: It was supposed to be a joke. But, when Dean decides to go walking around in Sam's head he quickly figures out that some dreams aren't very funny.<p>

**Polaris**

_Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar._  
><em>-Sigmund Freud<em>

They were doing laundry, and as he emptied out his jean pockets there it was—the last of the Dream Root, twisted in the corner of a sandwich bag. Dean thought it would be funny. There was just enough for a little walk in Sam's head. At the very least he could spy a bit, gather some ammo from Sam's girly dreams to taunt him with later. Or even better, he could scare him; get a little payback for the shit Sam pulled last week when Sam threw a pillow at him in the middle of the night. A pillow which wound up sliced to ribbons and tossing polyester stuffing all over the room. Instinct was a bitch. He yelled at Sam until he cleaned it up. There was fucking fuzz everywhere. Sometimes being with Sam, who had stood there dazed with a chunk of fluff in his bed-messed hair, was like hanging out with a twelve year old. And maybe Dean was like hanging out with a fifteen year old, the pillow thing _may_ have been payback for a pantsing at the library last week, but at least Dean's jokes were better.

Dean shoved the baggie down in his pocket, and tried not to laugh.

Silene Capensis, the proper name for African Dream Root, sounded remarkably like the name of a high-school virgin who played the cello. And it tasted nine times more assy than magic mushroom tea. Dean shuddered remembering just how assy it was, as he filled the back of the coffee pot with water while Sam was out getting a soda from the machine. He also swiped a few of Sam's long hairs from his hairbrush in his duffle. The things were so long that Dean thought he'd choke on them. He lay the hairs and shook the Dream Root into the tiny, two-cup hotel carafe before arranging himself nonchalantly on the bed.

Sam eyed Dean quizzically as he entered the room, careful to step over the salt line at the door. "Not going out tonight?"

"Nah, Sammy, I'm bushed. Too pooped to whoop. Thought I'd just watch a little boob tube, you know, rot the melon."

"Good, god Dean, I hope that's not a euphemism?"

"A what?" It was moments like this that Dean believed that sometimes Sam just said words to say them. He rolled his eyes.

"A double-entendre."

"Mm, hmm…I know what it means Sam, I'm not retarded." Dean tossed him his own version of the ubiquitous "bitch face," then shook his head, "No actual boobs. I just said I was tired."

"Okay then." Sam sat at the table and cracked open his, of all things, diet orange soda. Jesus, Dean thought. "I guess I'll do a little look see."

"Yeah," Dean perked up, "find me a case, I'm booooorrrred!"

"Whining helps." The laptop chimed as Sam fired it up. "Dude, are you sure you don't wanna go out? Get a beer? Hit on the ladies? Leave me alone?"

"Aw, baby," Dean smirked, "Don't want you getting lonely, right? Big brother's here. And, you're all the lady I can handle tonight, Sammy, Sammy, Samkins. "

"Great," Sam snorted, and was that a blush? "If you want a case, you gotta let me work though."

"Okay, all work for Sam. I'll be out before you know it." Dean stood and did a little shimmy dance across the room which Sam ignored. So, he grabbed the channel changer and a swig of Sam's soda.

"Get'cher own!"

"Blech. Orange."

"Yeah, like I said, get your own."

Dean pouted, stripped out of his jeans and over shirt, flipped on the TV and thought about behaving, but not _too_ much-didn't want Sammy getting suspicious. As he stretched out in his boxers and tee on his bed (the one closest to the door, the one always closest to the door) he was surprised to find that really was tired, not even the Barrett Jackson auction on SpeedTV could hold his attention. He didn't mean to fall asleep first.

He awoke to Sam shuffling around in the dark. Glancing over at the shaking digitals of the clock he read 3:21 a.m. Another night of Sam dead on his feet and hauling his gigantic body into bed, then passing out still clothed, usually on top of the covers-something was wrong. If Dean were being honest, he'd known something was wrong for a while now. It had to be something to do with the deal. And although, the Dream Root could be the basis of some pretty hilarious payback Dean wondered if it also might help him figure out what was bothering Sam so much.

He heard Sam hit the mattress with a thud, and he felt a quick stab of pity for the kid. Dean lay in the dark, listening to Sam breathe, trying not to sync his breathing to his, because who does that? He knew when Sam was deep asleep because could hear the familiar catch in his breath, the familiar rhythm of inhale and exhale; he had been listening to Sam his whole life. Dean slid as silently as possible out of the bed, padded across the floor like a super-ninja and flipped the switch on the coffee pot hoping it wouldn't make too much noise as it heated the water.

Sammy stirred, but didn't wake. Dean heard him making little moans in his sleep, and hoped that meant something good for once, lord knows they were both plagued with some fairly horrible nightmares on occasion; just a by-product of the things they saw during their waking hours. One could push down the horrors and fears of the hunt, but they always found a way back to the surface somehow.

Anguish and pain. Sleepless nights. Those, Dean guessed, were to be expected. But, it would be nice, he thought, to lay down with some little sliver of peace. Who was he kidding? He thought of the old maxim, "Sleep when you're dead." It both did and did not apply to Winchesters. They moved from hunt to hunt with hell on their heels, staving off sleep with caffeine and adrenaline to get the job done. But there was no rest at the end. Dean had dreamed of what was to come. The night with the Dream Root and that stupid fucking Jeremy asshole hadn't been the first or last time Dean dreamt of the day his deal was up, or what would become of him after that. He'd get no sleep even in death.

The day got closer. And Dean knew Sam had been sleeping less and less. He'd even dragged Sam's boring bookish ass to the bar for drinks, just so he'd get to that mellow drunk point where sleep came so easily it was like falling into water…dark, empty and, hopefully, dreamless. That was a dangerous tactic, not one to be taken lightly—one shot too many and some chick-switch could short circuit Sam's filter. It had happened before. He'd get maudlin and touchy, his eyes gone all mushy he'd loll his head on Dean's shoulder, effectively killing any chance Dean had to get lucky with a waitress or random bar skank. Cockblock extraordinaire! Dean sighed and the coffee pot sputtered a little.

Sam shifted, in the spare light that shone through the cracked curtain, Dean saw Sam's hand grasp and twist the covers, but he didn't make a noise. And, thankfully, he didn't wake.

Time to go Sam-spelunking, Dean thought as he poured the slightly sweet smelling, but bitter mixture into the cheap Styrofoam coffee cup the hotel provided. Sometimes Dean wished they could spring for a nicer room just once in a while. He knows Sam would appreciate it; he had said as much on several occasions, but they both knew why they stayed where they did. These off-track roach motels were cheap, the managers asked no questions, and everyone left them to themselves. Still…

The smell of the mix was deceptively less pungent than it tasted. The stuff was awful; Dean swallowed and tried to let as little of it touch his tongue as possible. Total ass. As he walked over to his bed he reached out and placed his hand on the back of Sam's neck for a brief touch. To ground me, he thought. It was light enough not to wake Sam, but still enough to soften Dean's resolve. Although it was too late, he thought that maybe this had been a less than well-thought-out idea. As he lay down on top of the coverlet he listened to Sam breathe and watched the cracks of light creep across the ceiling with passing cars. And then he was gone.

Dean woke, okay maybe woke was the wrong word, in the backseat of the Impala, fully dressed. The sun was shining overhead in a cloudless blue sky. He swung his legs around and sat up to get his bearings. The car sat on the side of a newly-paved blacktop highway. On either side fields of hay, almost ready for the thresher waved in the breeze. Ahead and behind the road winked out into nothing, the sun on the road made it waver like a mirage. Then the radio flipped itself on, and he couldn't help but smile when he recognized Van Morrison's "Stoned Me." It had been a favorite of Sam's when he was younger, before he decided that classic rock wasn't cool. Sam sang it loud and off key while Dean laughed a little. The song always seemed sad, considering it ended on the idea of going home—someplace they never really had. But, Sam had loved it, begged Dean to sing it with him, until Dean had explained what Van Morrison meant by "jelly roll." Then twelve-year-old Sam was grossed out.

Dean cracked the door and stepped out into a moonless night.

"Trippy."

The road was the same, the field dark to his right. The road or the field, he wondered, until something glowed among the tall grasses. At the edges of the field a forest loomed black and bare of leaves. A winter forest, although there was no snow, and it was not cold. There—a well-worn path, bent grasses on either side. Everything was stark, nearly black and white. The glow gathered strength until it seemed that Dean walked in a circle of light. Although he was unable to see its source above him, it shone down like a helicopter spotlight, moving with him as he walked on through the field. He spread his arms and let his fingers ruffle the tops of the grasses. Then he heard them, whispers at first as he turned his head to catch the scrap of a voice. The wind picked up and made a soft hiss moving across the field in waves. There were more voices there hidden in the soft noise it made.

"Horrible."

"Never loved you."

"Couldn't save me."

The voices were too soft, he did not recognize the speaker…no speakers? But the sentiment was clear.

Dean called out into the darkness, "Who are you? Are you talking to me?"

"Sammy."

"Sammy."

"Samuel."

"Sam."

"Sam isn't here, right now, can I take a message?" Dean would have laughed, but the voices were pretty fucking creepy to be honest.

"Sam is here."

"I said he isn't here. It's Dean." he repeated.

"Sam is here. Sam is here. Sam is here." A chorus of voices responded, ignoring Dean entirely, or mistaking him for Sam perhaps. Then again, Sam had to be somewhere here, this was, after all, his dream. Sam could be anywhere, Dean thought. The voices got louder:

"Abomination."

"Mistake."

"Liar."

A figure stood in the dark just outside of the circle of light, too still to be real. It did not walk, but glided forward. As it came to the edge of the light he recognized her long blonde hair. The blood soaked nightgown she wore must have been the same one Sam had seen as she was pressed to the ceiling, before she burst into flames.

"Jess?"

She moved closer, looking not at Dean, but through him. Like a death echo, Dean thought, something for Sam to torture himself with…great. Her voice rose as anger tinged with sorrow and bitterness. "Sam, why? Killed me. How could you leave? Knew what was coming. Left me. Left me. Let it have me. Wanted it to. Didn't need me." Her accusing voice rose and fell on top of itself, echoing from all directions as if there were many Jessicas speaking instead of just one.

"It's not Sam. I'm Dean."

"Dean." There was a laugh, bitter and sarcastic. "Dean. Dean. Dean. Dean. Loved him more than me. Wanted to leave me anyway. Dean came. Took you away from me. Didn't love me. Killed me. Wanted Dean. Dean. Dean. Dean. I was nothing. Threw me away. Loved you. Killed me. Your love is poison. Your love is a curse. He'll be gone too. No one can love you now."

Dean was bombarded by her voice from all directions at once. Is this what went on in Sam's head? All this self-accusation? If this was normal for Sam, he should have broken into his Cro-Magnon grapefruit long ago. He should have put a stop to this, set it to right. Sam was beating himself up still. Reliving all this shit over and over again. No wonder he looked tired. No wonder he researched until he was on his last legs, so that Dean almost had to force him to bed just like he had when Sam was a stubborn kid.

"Listen, bitch. You ain't real. I'm not Sam. And Sam didn't know. So, can the 'poor me' routine and back the fuck off."

Her thousand-yard-stare snapped into focus, and she met his eyes with focused hatred. Maybe this wasn't a death echo after all?

"Dean." She hissed, raising her hand towards him, palm flat. The wind picked up and blew against him hard from her direction, almost as if she were controlling it. "When you showed up that day, you were my death sentence."

"The demon killed you, Jess. I'm sorry. We didn't know." Dean _was_ sorry, and despite Sam's premonitions or whatever, it was true that they had no way of knowing that the Yellow-Eyed demon would come for her. It appeared that vengeance, the death of the demon who had killed her, had done nothing to alleviate Sam's guilty feelings. "We killed it, it won't hurt anyone else. We didn't know it would come for you."

"Doesn't matter. You were the death sentence. When Sam walked out that door with you, our life was over. He was never, ever coming back to me. You took him. You. You stole him. Stole my life."

"Stole?"

"You stole him and he stole my life." Jessica rushed towards him her features stretched and distorted with anger. But as he balked and steadied himself for the blow, she passed through him.

"Jesus," Dean rolled his eyes. "Even Sammy's personal demons are melodramatic and girly."

He didn't expect the blow when it came. Something cuffed him soundly on the back of the head and snatched up a handful of hair. The hand wrenched around to turn him, and Dean found himself staring directly into his father's eyes.

"Samuel," John sneered. John had been a dick at times, but he had never seen a look like this on his father's face in life. The disgust was clear on his features; his eyes tight and full of hatred, his mouth set.

"Dad?" Dean stepped back from the hatred emanating from John. This wasn't right. Dad didn't hate Sam, he thought. He loved Sam. They fought, but…Dean shook his head with disbelief, there wasn't hate. It pained him to think that Sam thought their father would, could, ever look at him with such a face. This face, this _hunter_ face, was only ever directed at things, at monsters…not at them, not ever, no matter how much they fought amongst themselves or butted heads.

John moved forward, looming, it seemed much larger than he did in real life.

"Why didn't you stay dead? You think you're worth Dean? I died for him. You? He was supposed to kill you, not sacrifice himself for you. For you?"

Not that, Dean thought. That was too much. How could Sam, Dean swallowed, how could he believe these things about himself? The thought of his brother standing in this field, confronted with all his magnified guilts and regrets nearly broke Dean's heart. His father kept coming, moving closer with a steady plod and that mask of hatred.

"What's dead should stay dead," John said. The same words, Dean recalled, that he had said to Sam after that lovesick Greek-writing-geek had brought his dead crush back from the dead and they were forced to return her to her 'natural' state.

"Sammy will not die for me or for anyone." Dean tried to control his voice, but he wanted to shout, to scream. "Not while I can stop it."

"You don't deserve Dean. Always better than you. You should have died in that nursery. All our lives carting you around, Dean doing everything for you, and you left us? We should have left you. Dean should have left you. He should have left you dead."

Dean's hand struck his father before he even knew he was reacting. "Is this what you tell him when he comes here? God dammit, Sammy. " He spoke as if Sam could hear him, maybe he could? "Sammy, please, you have to know this isn't true."

When John pulled his hand away from his mouth, there was blood, vivid and red as a crayon, smeared across his cheek. The look of anger and disgust was gone, "Dean?"

"Fuck you. You're not real. Dad would never…" Dean started, afraid of what this "Dad" might say, he prepared himself for the worst, for the things that Sam likely told himself.

"You should have killed him like I asked. Now you're doomed, and it's his fault. All his fault. You would have been better off without him."

"You asshole. You fill Sam's head with this bullshit? I'll tell you a secret: you're imaginary, and I would have mown down my real father with no remorse to save Sammy." Dean had never said anything like this aloud, but he knew in his heart it was true. "I loved my dad, and I would have died for him, but Sam, Sam's another story, you get me?"

"You'd save that abomination?"

"Don't you call him that. You don't get to call him that. You're not real. You're just fear, you're guilt. Sam doesn't deserve that. He deserves to live. To live unhaunted and unburdened by this bullshit, but we don't get that, do we? He doesn't deserve to die because some asshole demon thinks it's his destiny. And he's not going to die because you think he should, either. He's my responsibility and he will _not_ die on my watch; I don't care what it costs me."

"It's a shame, Son, you just give your life away so easy. Do you think he cares?"

"You wouldn't be here, if he didn't care. He cares too much. I think it kills him, but I'm a selfish son of a bitch. I know he'll get over it. But, I wouldn't be able to live long without him anyway."

"You think that? You'll regret it. You will regret it a hundred times over. I'm sorry Dean."

"Fuck you." Dean spat. His father smirked and looked him over as if he were sizing him up for something. Dean stood firm in the face of scrutiny, although he wanted to cringe he would not back down.

His father laughed. Derisive cold laughter that bubbled up from all around him, echoed back from the stark trees of the shelter-break. Dean blinked and, click, John was gone.

Then came a silence. The wind, a constant shush, went still. And Dean saw him.

"Sammy?"

There—a boy. He stood in the field. Fourteen-years-old if he was a day. His face a concerned scowl that Dean knows by heart. A scowl he still saw traces of flittering over Sam's sharper adult features.

"We love him." The boy whispered. His eyes red, his cheeks tear-stained and pale. His mouth a tremble. "We love him. You know we love him. You can't do this. Fix it. Fix it. We can't be alone. We can't be without him. Please. Please. Don't let him go." Sammy dropped to his knees in the field, sobbing uncontrollably. "I hate you. We love him. We need him. He'll be alone. You said we'd never leave him again. We promised he'd never be alone."

He knows this field is meant to torture Sam. Sam designed it to punish himself, but Dean knows that if Sam had seen into his heart at any point, looking for some image, some _thing_ to destroy Dean as well, he would have found this moment, these tears, these words, this still small and timid boy always so afraid, still so vulnerable. The very thing Dean was ingrained to protect above anything, to the limits of his endurance even. How could he endure this, this manifestation of all the things he was hell bound to protect?

Dean could not keep from reaching forward. He knelt on the ground beside him. He scooped him into his arms. He pulled the little body to his. As Sammy's body shuddered through wide-mouthed sobs, Dean tried to pull himself together, to build a wall against the temptation to collapse along with him.

"Don't cry Sammy. I'm sorry."

The boy buried his face into Dean's shoulder. I forgot how scared, Dean thought.

"We love him. We love him so much. Can't let him."

"No, Sammy, I'm here." Dean couldn't tell if this was another dream figure, or the real thing, but the third person plural deal seemed a little weird. Please let this not be now-Sam in some weird form, Dean thought, not knowing what else to call him.

"Dean?" The little face lifted into the light, a perfect oval of brightness. "Dean, don't go. Dean, don't leave me behind. I'll be good I promise."

"Sammy, baby boy," Dean remembered Sam at this age, and has to choke back the tears. This is the same thing Sam would say when Dean and their Dad would leave on hunts. What was Sam trying to do to him, pull out all the tear-jerkers at once? He bit back the sob that built in his chest, "I would do this for you again and again. I need you to understand, okay?"

Sam arms were small and light around Dean's neck, "I love you. Don't forget I love you. We both love you so much it hurts. You can't forget that, okay?"

"What do you mean both, baby?" This Sam, still raw, unformed, stuffed to the gills with worry, had Dean falling into old habits and old nicknames.

"Sam and I. I thought maybe you don't know?"

He wanted to yell, "Don't, say that, please. Don't think I don't know." But instead forced out a, "Sammy, I know."

"Sam doesn't say it. You don't say it. We love you. It's like a big fire, burning everything. You take the light."

"What? Baby, I don't understand." Cryptic crap again? A fire? Sam's brain was all riddles and poetry.

"You. You take the light. Fills us. All our light is in you. Without you we are so empty. And afraid."

"You're not afraid." Dean brushed the hair back from Sammy's forehead.

"You don't know. Afraid of the dark without you. I tell Sam to change it. Let us keep you forever, big brother. We are yours. We want to go too."

"You can't go with me." Dean shook his head. "Sam can't go with me, that's the point, kiddo."

"Sam is afraid. What if he can't save you?"

"We deal with that later. Tell him not to be afraid." He didn't know if that would work, passing a message through a dream, but it was worth a try.

"You tell him. Tell him. He comes here and cries. We love you."

Little hands reached up to cup Dean's face, and Sam pressed his lips to Deans. Dean was too stunned to move, too stunned to shake his head and tease Sam for being a girl. The kiss was chaste and sweet and full of love, innocent and dumb. Sam pulled away and looked Dean in the face, a little smile playing at his features, like he was proud. Sam straightened his head and back, to seem taller, more serious. Dean remembered this look too, it meant Sammy had been thinking of something very seriously, and that Dean should listen.

"You keep our love." He said very deliberately, pronouncing each syllable with importance. "You keep our life. Maybe you didn't know? You will now." Sam smiled at him, dimple fully dimpled.

Dean was still stunned, still reeling with sorrow and nostalgia, when Sam faded out still smiling. He held nothing but empty air.

In the pale light that surrounded him, the stalks of grass began to sway again. Dean stood on shaky legs, brushed the dirt from his knees with the back of his hand and stood looking at the night sky. The stars so bright and distinct that he knew Sam could name every one. The Milky Way stood out as a wide blur across the darkness. Dean loved the sky, loved watching it from the road, or seated on the hood of the Impala with Sam, but he could never remember the constellations, no matter how often or how patiently Sam pointed them out. He knew the North Star and the North Star only. Dean could zero in on it like he was magnetic. He turned. There. It pulsed out brighter than the rest, and Dean chuckled a little. One little bright spot in the universe beckoning him…how fucking cheesy.

He couldn't take much more of Sam's head. It was like that old movie _Dreamscape _or something. All these little bits of Sam's unconscious were eating away at his emotions and strength, and they had already destroyed his original purpose for being here. Jess had seen to that straight away. Why had he thought this would be fun? He knew he would not only not get anything prank-worthy out of this dream walk, he might have just punked himself.

The things Sam believed, the pain in here, the ways he tortured himself, berated himself, lay himself bare, was startling. More so…it was numbing. No wonder Sam kept working himself to the bone, only stopping when his body or brain finally shut down from lack of sleep. Who would want this? Who would want to be here? Dean wondered if it was every night? Sam was haunting his own dreams and all of his fears were laid bare here. This had to stop. Dean would stop it. He would find Sam, somewhere in this field of emotional landmines, and smack some sense into him if he had to.

Dean had a purpose, and that was good. A goal was good. Find Sammy. Slap Sammy. Easy-peasy. He turned towards the North Star—Polaris throbbed like a beacon. He walked keeping his eyes on it. The field narrowed, trees hemming him in on either side. And something moved in the darkness there.

A man. Darkness upon darkness. Moving naturally through the tall grass, not gliding, not flickering in or out like a ghost. He came closer, and Dean was unsure of what to expect. Then he recognized the gait, having seen it enough in reflections as he passed…"Shit."

Unlike the other "ghosts" who haunted Sam's psyche, this one, this seventeen year old Dean, blonde hair pushed up, skin unlined and sun-kissed, wasn't confused. As soon as he came into focus, illuminated by the glow of light, he stared at Dean and chuckled, "Oh, damn man, you should not be here. Why are you in Sam's head? Aren't there enough Deans here?"

At least Dean would have no qualms about kicking his own ass, in Sam's brain or not. He shook his head imagining the thing Sam's subconscious might have Dean's seventeen year old, cocksure self, say.

"Oh, this is bullshit! What idiotic crap do you spew at him?"

Dean took an aggressive stance and the two of them circled each other like captive tigers: each narrowing their eyes, analyzing their prey. Dean figured he was stronger by quite a bit, but at seventeen he had been fast as lightning. If it did come to blows he'd have to hit hard and first to keep the upper hand. Although, he thought, in his old age he had learned some dirty tricks. Still, he'd hate to smack around some weird Sam-construction of himself, and it would be a shame to ruin such a pretty face.

"I don't have to say anything. Everyone else talks and talks. Big disappointment this and that. Sam knows he broke our heart. Broke it a million times, didn't he? He knows. He sees our face and he thinks we hate him. I just let him believe it. I don't have to say a word."

"Listen, asshole. We…I mean I, I could never hate Sam. Sam knows that."

"Oh, you don't have to tell me, cupcake. I know. Does he?"

"Yes, he fucking knows."

"Stupid, Dean. Sammy was our world."

"Is, dick. Sammy _is_ our world."

The high-school Dean tilted his head back and laughed. "Don't do this."

"Do what?"

"Snoop around in here. You're as bad as he is, always wanting, wanting, wanting to know. Questioning me. All the stupid questions." High-school Dean stared directly at him, "Some things we should keep quiet. What you don't know can't hurt you." He rolled his eyes and sighed deeply. "You're both scab pickers. Pick. Pick. Pick. Fucking needy co-dependent motherfuckers." He laughed hard, head thrown back, white teeth flashing. "Maybe that's not the right word? You wanna know stuff too, huh? Oh, Sammy wants us to love him so badly. Plead, plead, plead. 'Dean look at me. Dean, say something. Dean, I'm sorry. Dean, Dean, Dean.' Your name is half his fucking vocabulary, and yet he still thinks he's so smart."

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

"Just keep walking asshole, maybe you'll see something you like."

Then he disappeared. Out like a light leaving Dean alone again.

"What is with all you fucking cryptic ass motherfuckers?" Dean shouted to the empty air, flailing his arms like he wanted to punch something. "Even Sam's dreams are confusing as fuck. Where are the pretty girls? Where's the teddy bears and tea parties? The dancing around to emo music?"

The spot of light illuminating him shut off, leaving him in blinding darkness. "For fucks' sake, what now?" His eyes slowly adjusted, and the field around him got brighter, and then brighter. In the sky the moon was rising full and round and ridiculously, hypnotically big. He started walking towards it, and looked down to see that the path was parting through the hay ahead of him. The grasses were actually bending away from him as he stepped forward.

Looking up at moon again Dean was startled to see it had transformed itself into the hotel marquee for The Blue Moon Hotel and Apts. Dean remembered the place, it was clean and freshly painted, each room with a different color door. He wanted to say theirs had been orange, no red, that summer. He had been seventeen, Sammy fourteen. Dad was gone almost all the time. Half the summer by the pool, just them in the little clean room with the tiny kitchenette. Each had their own twin bed with blue coverlet. Everything around them smelled of chlorine, from the sheets to the pool, to their swim-wrinkled and sun-pinked skin. Sam had loved this place. Dean just loved that Sam loved it.

The stars twinkled on above his head, and the pool sent up turquoise ripples across the courtyard. A girl sat in the glassed in reception area filing her nails and flipping through an issue of _Seventeen_. Dean recognized her too. Sam had had a crush on the older red-head, and had found every excuse to speak with her that he could. It was so sad and puppyish that Dean decided the girl, Melissa, Melody, something, was "off limits." He didn't want to break Sam's heart, although he knew she was interested by the way she perked up when he was around, twirling her finger through that strawberry blonde mane.

A little chime sounded as Dean pushed open the door and made his way to the counter. Everything looked too clean, the leaves of the fake plants seemed freshly polished, the girl's skin was flawless, her lips a full and glassy Hubba-Bubba pink. Her strawberry hair too perfectly arranged.

She looked up at him with a practiced smile, as he placed his hands on the lemon yellow countertop. "Need something? Towels?"

She was almost uncanny. Her eyes a brilliant blue, off-putting in their brightness.

"Um, no." He cleared his throat. "Actually, I'm looking for my brother."

"You," she said with a smile, "you look different."

"Different?"

She cocked her head to the side and studied him with those weirdly intense blue-violet eyes. "Different." She said matter-of -factly.

"Rough day, I guess?" He offered, thinking about how he was eight years older than she was probably expecting him to be.

"That must be it." She nodded her head. "Isn't Sam in the room?"

"Um, yeah, I um, forgot my key."

"But if he's in could you knock?"

This was getting ridiculous. He felt like he had been lost in Sam's dream world for hours and nothing was getting him any closer to Sam. At this point Dean just wanted out. Too many road blocks, too many confusing dream-people.

"I…" he started, "Yeah, but could you just give me the key?"

"Sure thing, Dean."

He was instantly impressed that she could remember his name and felt bad that he didn't know hers. But, then again she wasn't exactly real. She was part of Sam's weird dream-memories-somethings. She pulled the key from the hook under number 12, and turned back around facing him.

"Oh," she said with a surprised noise.

"Oh?"

"I just noticed, you're…" she paused, "you're you, Dean. That's what's different."

Jesus, more nonsense? Dean thought, it was like Alice in fucking Wonderland. Or Dante's _Inferno_. "Yeah, been me for a while now."

"No, really you." She studied him, dangling the key from the tips of her fingers, the black "Blue Moon" key fob with room number spinning slightly. "Are you sure you want to do this, Dean?"

"I just want to see my brother." Dean said.

"Okay then," she handed the key over to him and brushed his palm with her fingers as she did.

As he turned to walk away, key in hand, she called out to him. "You shouldn't go in there. It will change everything."

But the glass door shut with a soft thud behind him as he crossed the lot to room 12. Orange, their door had been orange.

Standing outside the door, he heard Sam, and he was moaning. Pressing his face to the lit window he saw only shapes through the print sheers, but knew instinctively what those shapes meant: sex.

"Ha, ha, Sammy Boy." Dean chuckled. He scratched his head, though. This was unexpected. "At least it isn't all pain and sobbing in your head, kid." Now he had a dilemma though. Should he wait until the noises settle, or knock? He certainly didn't want to barge in on Sam's naughty dreams. Dean shuddered, thinking that there is no telling what he'd see and that some things are better left to imagination. Not that he'd ever imagined Sam having sex. Another shudder. Well, except…shudder.

Amid the groaning and panting, Dean heard something "off." Sam's voice calling his name, "Dean! Don't! Oh!"

Shit, Dean thought, not sex, not sex. Sam was being attacked, or hurt. He never noticed how much sex and pain could sound alike.

Dean had nothing, not a single weapon. Opening the door cautiously, Dean tried to be silent in the hopes of catching whatever's hurting Sam off guard. If he could, maybe he'd get the upper hand and banish whatever evil thing was fucking around in Sam's dream world.

The door opened silently on well-oiled hinges. The lamp on the side table was throwing out golden light and Dean was…Dean was…there?

Sam too, eyes closed in…pain? Cuffed to the bed frame? Moaning?

"Dean."

Moaning his name? Writhing under him?

Sam was stretched out, shoulder blades digging into the mattress, lifting his pelvis towards…Dean? Who had his…hands? Down Sam's boxers and was…no? No.

It was like watching a car wreck, but the wreck was Dean fucking around with a handcuffed and very aroused little brother who seemed incapable of keeping his dirty moaning to himself.

Dean thought about turning around, actually took a step back, too shocked and suddenly nauseous to do much else. That's when the other Dean, the one who has been slowly stroking Sam off and rubbing his obvious erection against Sam's thigh noticed him.

"Well, aren't you a handsome son of a gun?" He sneered. The fucker actually winked at Dean. Rage bubbled up in him. How dare this person wear his face, do these things, he thought.

The not-Dean's eyes flashed silver. Then, Dean's heart sank, they flashed black.

Looking directly into Dean's eyes he licked Sam's chest, trailed his tongue up to Sam's neck and opened his mouth to bite the tender muscle there.

"Get away from my brother!" Dean yelled, his momentary paralysis broken. He ran full steam at the "Dean" about to sink his monster teeth into Sam's neck. "Sammy!"

He heard Sam respond in a confused voice, "Dean?"

As Dean pushed Dean to the floor he knocked over the lamp. It stuttered out, momentarily startling him, but the light from the open door was plenty to see by. Dean's fists pounded into the body beneath him. "What are you? Shapeshifter? Vampire? Demon? Did you hurt him?"

He heard Sam struggling with his restraints, "Dean?"

As he took a quick glance over his shoulder to look at Sam, and the other Dean disappeared. He was just gone, like that!

But Sammy was still there, and still half naked. His face registering not fear but confusion as he said Dean's name again, "Dean?"

"Sammy? You know that wasn't me, right? He hurt you? God, Sammy. Why would you dream that? I would never hurt you like that, Sammy. I would never." He shook off the recollection of his brother's face while that other Dean molested him. Why would Sam dream that? Why would he accept it? What kind of monster did he think Dean might become?

Sam smiled, a smile that went full-dimple, one Dean hadn't seen in a while, one with only a touch of "my brother is an idiot" laced beneath it. Sam raised his eyebrow, "Hurt me? What? Who are you talking about?"

"That thing, that, me imposter? He just fucking vaporized or something. He was going to bite you." Dean clambered to his feet, trying not to think about what he walked in on, or why Sam was still sporting a rather sizable erection. Dean averted his eyes.

Sam smiled, "What are you talking about? We're the only ones here."

"Sam, that is you, right?" Suddenly Dean was suspicious, maybe this was another figment of Sam's imagination, but what for? This Sam wasn't berating himself. This Sam recognized him right away…or did he? Dean realized, Sam didn't know he was real here. To Sam he was just another dreamt Dean, like the one in the field said, there were more Deans here. It suddenly felt weird being the real one.

"Come here. You're acting weird. Take the cuffs off. We don't have to play this game."

Game? Dean shook it off, getting Sam out of the cuffs was his first priority. He'd deal with the "real" discussion later. "Where's the key? Did you see where he put it?"

Sam tilted his head looked at Dean with a face that said, "I'm trying to figure out something." Sam narrowed his eyes, "It's in your pocket."

"No, Sam, that's imposs…" Dean patted his pocket and there, a small silver key. Dreams are weird as shit, he thought. He walked towards the head of the bed, leaned his body across and uncuffed his brother quickly, trying not to think about what that other Dean was doing, or how Sam had seemed to let him do it.

"Dean." Sam sighed deeply and rubbed his wrists once the cuffs were released.

"What Sam?" Dean asked, unsure he really wanted to know.

Write it off, Dean thought, this is just a weird psycho dream brought on by too little sleep and too much stress. He suddenly wanted to move away, further from the bed and his very confused acting brother.

"You should finish what you start." Sam purred. He fucking purred.

Sam's long arms were suddenly pulling Dean down onto the bed, onto him. Sam flipped him over, straddled Dean's thighs, and looked down at him with a look Dean has seen before. Gross! Sam was giving him fuck-me-eyes. And before Dean could squeak out an appalled, "What the fuck are you thinking?" Sam kissed him. This was no little sweet fourteen-year-old innocent (albeit weird as fuck) Sammy kiss. This was a grown up kiss, the likes of which should not be directed at one's own brother.

Dean pushed Sam away, and lashed out, hitting Sam hard, right across the jaw. This is the second time he'd popped one of his family members' lips tonight. Soon he'd be beating the fuck out of every single one of Sam's dream people. Well, he would if he had to, Dean thought.

"Ow, motherfucker!" Sam grabbed his jaw, and looked down in shock.

"Sammy No." Dean tried to push him off, but Sam didn't budge.

"Dean, what the fuck, man?"

"Sammy, it's me. It's Dean."

"Um, I know. What the fuck?"

"'What the fuck?' Seriously?" Dean mocked, finally getting enough leverage to shove Sam off of him, and scrambling off the bed, "I should be 'what the fuck'-ing you."

"Um, no, you should be fucking me." Sam said rubbing his jaw with the flat of his hand.

"Jesus Christ, Sam! What the fuck are you dreaming about?"

"Dreaming?"

"Dreaming, Sam, as if that fucking field of torture weren't messed up enough, I find you rolling around on the bed with some 'dream Dean.' And I thought you were being attacked, I thought you were being tortured, raped, I mean…" Dean sucked in a huge breath, "were you…I'm going to puke." Dean felt his insides get hot and sloshy. His heart was beating like mad, he leaned over and put his hands on his knees.

"Dreaming?" Sam repeated. "Dean, are you okay?" Sam ran to him, rubbing small circles over his back, "Are you sick? What's going on?"

Dean threw Sam's hands off of him and backed up against the wall, trying not to panic, trying not to be disgusted. "Sam this is fucked up. Right? Tell me he was attacking you. Please? Tell me you were fighting him off and this is some fucking metaphorical subconscious dream thing about me going to hell."

"Dream?"

"Dream, Sam, dream. D-r-e-a-m. Wake up, dude. Oh, god, wake up and explain this shit right now."

He saw the realization seep into Sam in slow-motion, his eyes growing impossibly wide and blinking in rapid bursts, his breathing speeding up to near hyperventilation level, his hands shaking. "Dream?"

Sam tilted his head to the side and Dean was surprised when tears immediately ran down Sam's face. He swallowed hard, looking at the carpet. Shook his head slightly, his voice was a whisper, "Tell me you didn't? This is just part of it. You're not you." Sam's lip curled in a grimace of pain, "No, you. That's not…" He stopped, looked up at Dean, who had flattened himself against the wall. "You didn't? Dean?" Sam's eyes were hopeful. "You're just a dream."

Dean thought about saying yes. For a split second he thought, I'll just say yes, and no one will be the wiser. Then he thought, fuck that, I'll be the wiser. Teenaged Dean was right, they were scab pickers. And now the motherfucker joke made sense…fuck that kid. Dean shuddered.

"I took the Dream Root Sam. I wouldn't have if…I'm sorry. You have no idea how sorry."

Sam's face crumpled, and his body with it, he was on the floor, his arms around his knees, long legs pulled up close. "Oh, god." He put his forehead down on his legs and started to rock. "You didn't have the right to do that. What am I supposed to do? Why would you come here?"

"You weren't sleeping." Dean thought it would be best to leave out the bit about it being a funny way to pull a prank on Sam.

"Then you ask me about it, you don't. Oh my god, what did you see?"

"I thought he was attacking you."

The noise Sam made was as close to a cry of pure anguish as Dean had ever heard. He'd heard plenty of things in anguish. He'd pulled this sound from the throats of innumerable demons and creatures, he'd heard it made by humans too, when he was too late to save them. Hearing it from his brother almost…almost…had him crossing the room. But the shock of what he had seen, the shock of that kiss kept him plastered against the wall.

Sam's voice was a whisper, "This will ruin everything." Then he snapped to, looked straight at Dean, "It's not what you think. Dean, it isn't. It's like a metaphor. It isn't…it isn't what it looked like." There was little forced smile at the end of that statement, but it didn't ring true.

"Sam, I don't want to talk about it, I just want to go."

"But if you go," Sam said, slowly getting up from the floor and rising to his feet again, "you'll hate me."

"I won't," Dean stepped away from the wall and towards the door, eyeing Sam suspiciously, "hate you."

"I need to explain."

"Explain on the other side; I need out of here."

"No." Sam's voice was forceful, he shut his eyes tight, and suddenly the door and window to the room disappeared, as if they had never been there at all.

Dean scrambled over to the smooth blank wall, feeling for any indication of a way out. "Let me out, Sam. Let me out." Dean was actually starting to panic now; he could feel his chest constricting.

"Not until you listen to me. It wasn't what it looked like."

"We'll talk later, let me out." Dean turned back to Sam, "I'll fucking hit you again, let me out."

"No, I need you to listen to me. Now. We have to talk about this. And once we wake up, if you want to go then, take off. "

Talk? Maybe Sam was right, not about the talking, Dean thought, about the possibility of Dean hating him for this, and about the very real possibility of Dean running. Taking off in the middle of the night didn't sound half bad right about now, Dean thought. Oh, this had been one stellar fucking bad idea.

* * *

><p><em>Dreamscape<em>. Dir. Joseph Ruben. Perf. Dennis Quaid. 20th Century Fox, 1984. Film.

Morrison, Van. "And it Stoned Me." _Moondance._ Warner Bros., 1969.

_Supernatural_. CW. WNUV, Baltimore. 2005-2011.


	2. Chapter 2

Title: Polaris  
>Author: James Parker Lombard<br>Rating M: Language, Wincest (Sam/Dean? and a little Sam/Dean…why is Sam's name always first? More Dean/Sam for later?), General Skeeviness  
>SpoilersSet: Season 3 between Ep.10 "Dream a Little Dream" and Ep. 11 "Mystery Spot."  
>Characters: Dean and Sam Winchester (Chapter Two, Sam POV)<br>Word Count:4,444!  
>Summary: Dean went dream walking where he shouldn't (in Sam's fucked up head) and now Sam needs to diffuse this situation stat, before certain things get...well…it's kind of too late for that. Here's the fallout.<p>

**Polaris**

_Illusions commend themselves to us because they save us pain and allow us to enjoy pleasure instead. We must therefore accept it without complaint when they sometimes collide with a bit of reality against which they are dashed to pieces.  
><em>_-Sigmund Freud_

Dean turned from the door, his hands stilled. He kept them open in front of him, "What the fuck, Sam. What the…" his eyes rolled and he slapped his hands against his face, drug them down slowly as he walked over and fell back into the flimsy hotel chair. His voice all forced calm now as he said, "I don't even know what to say to you."

"Then get out." Sam replied, feeling a wave of intense nausea burning the pit of his stomach. What the fuck had Dean done by coming here? This was a fucking violation. Oh, god, had he kissed him? When had "Dean" changed to Dean? Sam had to come up with some reason, some explanation that Dean could understand. He knew, otherwise, this could end them. He could not have Dean leaving him now. Not now, the deal was almost up, he'd be gone forever soon enough unless Sam could find a way out. Why now? Why did Dean have to walk in here? Why did he have to see, that? There was no way he'd understand. Sam hardly understood.

"It's not like that, you dick. I told you it's a fucking metaphor. Dean, I didn't…I don't want…come on, man, do you think I'd really ever …" This was going badly; Sam couldn't even say the words. How could he convince Dean that what he saw wasn't what he thought it was? "You know, if you had gone to school, or even paid attention, you'd know some fucking thing about Freud." That was half-true, Sam thought, it was a metaphor, but still…he knew he took some pleasure from these dreams as well. This would destroy them. Fuck, fuck, fuck! His brain was going overtime trying to think of some explanation, some _reason_.

"Get out?" Dean spat, "I want out! Why don't you dream a fucking door back into this room, Sigmund?" Dean's heel was bouncing hard against the floor, his hands rubbing through his short hair like an OCD.

"People don't control what they dream," Sam's jaw hurt. Fucking Dean, Sam rubbed it, trying to soothe the physical sting of it. Sam was trying to sound certain, convincing. He knew that what he was saying wasn't entirely true, but he didn't want to argue nuances here. "Besides, sexual…"

"Shut up, Sam!" Dean leaned down with his head between his knees like he was going to pass out. Sam wondered if passing out in a dream would mean waking up. Maybe that was a way to get Dean out of here?

"You shut up, stupid. Asshole! Who asked you to fucking be here? Get out of my head, you judgmental dick! I am trying to tell you it isn't like that! Sexual activity in dreams is seldom sexual. It's about wanting to be closer to someone." Again, mostly true. Freud had said that, but these dreams were pretty sexual…and if Dean knew what they had "done" no amount of analytical argumentation would convince him it meant anything other than Sam had the hots for him.

To be honest, Sam didn't even know if it was a metaphor entirely. The dreams, the ones with Dean and him, they had been there for a while. And yeah, Sam knew that they _were_, on most levels, symbolic, some desire to be closer to Dean, to hold on to him or bind them together. Sex is always metaphorical.

Sam remembered the first time it happened, before he left for Stanford the first time, he couldn't look at Dean for days afterwards. He kept remembering not only the shame but the vivid memories of pleasure that burst through that shame, moments when he had Dean all to himself. Dean whispering how much he loved Sam, how much he wanted him. While he was at school, with Jess, the dreams disappeared—well, mostly. They came back hard after Sam 'awoke" after the incident at Cold Oak. The prospect of leaving Dean, of losing him, was again transforming itself into something sexual, pleasurable and intensely physical.

Sam would be lying to himself if he said it wasn't good, or that these weren't the dreams he begged for in comparison to the awful ones which were more frequent. Some nights he couldn't make it here, to this spot, this part of the recurring dream. Some nights he was flayed alive emotionally in that field. This dream was the prize at the end of the tunnel-Dean in a way Sam could never have him—vulnerable, open, loving, even tender. Although, it often got fairly hot and heavy, it was best to keep that to himself, Sam thought.

"Closer? Oh, that was too fucking close." Dean raised his head, and stuck out his tongue in an exaggerated throw up face. "The two of us, you, me, I, ewh, you, no…fuck! Why? I need to bleach my fucking eyeballs." Dean's face was red. "Dream me a knife so I can cut them out. Goddamn it! It is in your head, Sam!" Dean paused like he was thinking, "Dream me a knife and I'll kill you," he smiled. "Or myself, that's fine too. Dream me a window; I'll jump out of it."

"It's not like that." Sam tried to control the panic that bubbled up in the face of Dean's anger, his outright disgust. The only way to salvage this moment was to convince Dean that what he saw wasn't literal, that he didn't think about him like that, because…he didn't, right?

"It looked like that. It's exactly what it looked like. With…tongues, and hands and fully erect parts, and ewh..I, no. If that's not what the fuck it was, then what the fuck does _that_ look like, Sam? Tell me. Oh, God, no don't." Dean leapt to his feet and hurried to the wall, was feeling around again with his hands like he was looking for some crack or seam. Sam wasn't entirely sure how he managed that trick. At the moment all he could think was "Dean can't leave." Then, poof…bye-bye escape route.

Sam fell back on the bed and stared at the stained ceiling. Even his dreams had water spots.

"I keep saying it isn't like that. Just fucking calm down? These dreams aren't about sex, Dean." He tried to keep his voice steady, sure. There was no room for doubt to sneak in, Dean would hear it.

"These? Oh, my god, as in plural?"

"Fuck you." Shit, Sam thought. Shit, shit, shit.

"Apparently."

Sam huffed, trying to feign annoyance and matter-of-factness, instead of blind fear.

"Since when, Sam?"

"I don't want to bang you, you retard!"

"Bang? No…guuuuuh! The dreams, oh, my god!"

"Senior year." He heard Dean make a little gasping noise, maybe it was surprise, or more disgust, Sam didn't lift his head to look. "I was applying to schools. I knew I was going to have to leave soon. I was scared of leaving you, what you'd do, how you'd react." Sam paused. "They stopped after that, but…um, after Cold Oak, after I found out about what you did…" Sam shut his eyes tightly, he didn't like thinking about the dwindling number of days Dean had left. "I, uh, I guess they started up again."

"Is this like a nightly occurrence?"

"No. I can't control it, but no. It's not like that. It's the field, more than anything. That? Did you?"

"Yeah, I saw it, Sam. Quite the horror show you put on for yourself, isn't it?"

"It's not like I control that either. I don't control any of it. You do get that, right?"

"Yeah, yeah… so you keep saying." Dean paused. "But, you were just going to let that _me_ do stuff to you?"

"It's not like that."

"Dude, it's a little like that."

"It's not literal."

"It looked literal."

"It's symbolic."

"Says the man begging for it. At least tell me I'm on top. I'm on top right?"

"You are seriously concerned with which one of us imaginary tops the other?"

"I'm on top. You are _my_ bitch."

"Seriously, you're bothered by my, totally normal by the way, symbolic dream in which my subconscious transforms my desire for closeness into a physical manifestation, and I'm not supposed to be bothered by you staking some sort of incestuous claim on pitching?"

"You were begging, Sam, beg-ging. 'Oh, Dean, blah, blah.' Having tooled around in your subconscious now, I can safely say that this is the gayest you have _ever_ been."

Sam felt another wave of nausea, and sat up on the end of the bed hoping to settle his stomach. He still couldn't look at Dean, the shame was too much, but he had to know. "What did you see?"

"Too much." Dean's voice softened, "Perversion aside, that field, Sam, you are torturing yourself. Jess? Dad? And what's with the sobbing mini-Sam? Jesus, you almost killed me with that one."

"I can't control it. Not the field, not the room."

"Fine." Dean paused. "Hey, is your jaw okay? I'm sorry I hit you. I just reacted."

"I would have hit you too, Dean. It's fine. It doesn't hurt too bad."

Dean sighed, as he began speaking again, "So, god, I do not want to be saying this, but, please, explain what was, um, metaphorical about what I walked in on?"

"Okay, okay…um, I'll try. That Dean, isn't, I don't know how to explain it. He isn't…this is hard." Sam winces, there is no way he'll be able to explain this to Dean, so he figures he might as well blurt it out, "He loves me."

"Oh, for fuck's sake! Sam, obviously I, whatever…not like that or anything. But, I fucking sold my soul for you. Doesn't that say something?"

"Yes, god Dean, of course, I know you 'whatever.' I know you love me. We're brothers. But sometimes our life is so stupid and big and horrible, and I feel like I'm alone, like part of you is always pulling away, so, that Dean…um, he doesn't? He doesn't pull away. _He_ tells me things. They're not always nice. The Dean in the field is the part of you that I know hates me, he won't talk to me. He won't even really look at me, like I'm the most disgusting thing in the world and it kills me, strips me raw."

"He talked to me."

Sam looked up, Dean was leaning against the wall. "What?" The silent, judgmental Dean in the field had never said one word to Sam, no matter how he pleaded or begged.

"I set him straight."

"What?" Sam both did and did not want to know what they had said to one another. Dean versus Dean? He is surprised it hadn't come to blows, or maybe it had?

"He's an idiot…so are you, I don't hate you. How could I hate you? Even he knew that. He said so. Dammit Sam, how could you think that? If all it takes is me saying I love you, then fine, I love you, idiot! Now can you please for the love of god, stop with the weird dreams and let me out of here?"

"Dean, I don't…that wasn't a…I know you love me."

"Yeah. I don't have to like say it a lot or anything do I? Because I guess I…will it stop these weird dreams?"

"Dean, fuck, I don't know. And no, I don't need you to…" Sam paused, had he ever heard Dean say that he loved him? He must have, and yet. "Dean?"

"What?" Dean huffed and glared at Sam.

"Have you ever said that?"

"Said what?"

"That you love, well…anybody?"

"I…" Dean opened his mouth and closed it quickly. His forehead furrowed and he stared at the headboard. Avoiding me, Sam thought.

"You never…but, Dean you have _loved_ somebody, right?" Sam thought Dean had loved Cassie, and he certainly had a thing for Lisa…that had been made clear in their last little Dream Root escapade with that Jeremy asshole. "And you have to have said it to someone, right?"

Dean didn't move, didn't answer.

"Not even when I was little?"

"You knew," Dean said it with a sense of certainty. He was right, Sam knew. Even if Dean had never said it, Sam knew.

"It wouldn't hurt to say it."

Dean started to blush, and Sam wondered if he had actually ever seen Dean blush before. It was kind of cute. He stammered out, "The Sam in the field kissed me. The Dean in the field warned me that something strange was going on…I suppose I should have listened to myself?"

"I kissed you? In the field?"

"Not you, you're a pervert, you were all…tongue…" Dean shook visibly, "The Sam in the field, the…you were like fourteen, must have been the age you were when we stayed here."

"You remember?"

"Yes. What? Of course I remember. I remember lots of things. That girl at the counter, you liked her a lot."

"I liked this place, that's probably why I dream of it rather than anywhere else. We spent all summer together, no pressure, no worries. This was the first time I felt a little like we, you and I, had a home." Sam paused. "I mean, it was all over come fall. I was back in school and you would leave with Dad. I was alone a lot, but…here, this place, that summer." Dean seemed a little calmer, and a little less visibly disgusted at Sam. "It was just you and me."

"It's just you and me now, Sam."

"No, Dean," Sam shook his head, looking down at where his bare toes ruffled the carpet, "It's not just you and me anymore. It's you and me on a deadline. You and me and the rest of the world, all those evil things, fucking insanity…there's no lazy by the pool, no mac and cheese."

Dean's chuckle surprised him, and Sam risked a little smile back. "That's my specialty. Give me a box of noodles and some orange powdery cheese and I'm an Iron Chef."

"It was a good summer, Dean." They smiled at each other across the quiet, tension-filled space of the small hotel room. That, Sam thought, was a good sign. "So, fourteen year old me in the field?"

"Yeah," Dean _was_ blushing, "you were crying. Then—whammy kiss! You were so small. You were crying so hard."

"I know. I'm sorry." Sam had seen himself there many times, his fourteen year old self pleading with him. All those insecurities, they weren't in the past, he had never really grown out of them; they were just smothered. Dreams revealed them. Everything that other Sam ever said was true, all the pain he felt, the fear of losing Dean for good, the sometimes suffocating love: all of it embodied by this one small imagined version of himself. "He, um…he…"

"I know, Sam." Dean took a deep breath. "You think I don't, but I do." His voice cracked. "I spent my whole life, um…looking after, um…" Was that a tear? Was Dean crying? "l..um…loving? Loving…"

Sam didn't know what to do, Dean was shaking, crying. That hardly ever happened. Sam was too afraid to move towards him, but it killed him not to.

"…you. I don't…I mean you know, right? I…I would…fuck, that fucking field. And you. You're like an emotional booby trap, goddamn it." Dean scrubbed the back of his hand over his cheek hard like he was trying to remove any evidence of emotion.

"I'm sorry."

"Sorry? Shut up. Just…I don't mean to be leaving. I know what it's like, this life…it sucks alone. It sucks with you, but…alone?" Dean moved his hands away and looked up at Sam, "I didn't want this for you, but I couldn't let you die. I love you. Okay? I love you way too much to let that happen. And this shit, this shit in your head, Sam, you gotta know it's fucked, right? That stuff in the field, it's not real. Jess, we didn't know. You didn't know, and she loved you. She wouldn't have blamed you for this. She wouldn't want you to suffer. And Dad? Sammy," Dean shook his head, "Sammy, you know that's not real, right? I mean, you _know_ that's not true."

"I know Dean, but some little part of me, I guess."

"And the you in the field?" Dean chuckled nervously, "Damn, I thought that little kiss would be the most disturbing thing I had to face tonight. Wow, was I wrong."

"Dean, I know what happened in here, uh, it doesn't…" Sam wasn't quite sure what he was trying to say. "I mean it's an exaggeration of real, all twisted around."

"Twisted is a good word for it." Dean raised an eyebrow. "You don't really want…?"

"No, I think it's more complicated than that. Like my subconscious manifesting its need for some affection and confirmation into something physical."

"Oh?"

"You're like all I have, you know? It's not like we get relationships, right? You're weirdly the closest thing I have in that respect. I feel like I'm married to you sometimes."

"Gross."

"You know what I mean." Sam rolled his eyes. "It's, uh, like I pour everything into you? I mean, in some ways it makes a kind of sense? How, um, this dream transforms it? All I have is you. You know?" As Sam said it he thought, well that seems kind of negative. "Not, that it's bad, you know? I mean. We're fine, right?"

"I guess," Dean said suspiciously, "Does this mean I have to be all girly with you? Please say no."

"God, no." Sam laughed. Maybe they would be fine?

"Sam, you know that this is some Flowers in the fucking Attic level shit."

"Dean, I don't…" Sam started to object, then twitched his head in surprise, "Wait, what the fuck? How do you even know what _Flowers in the Attic_ is?"

"I know shit. I went to fucking school, Sam." Dean blinked slowly, scowled; his top lip rose in a tell that signaled how much he still wanted to punch something. That something, Sam reckoned, was Sam. Dream or not, that first punch hurt. His jaw was still throbbing.

"Did you," Sam was pushing it, but he couldn't stop himself, he had to know, "did you, um, read it?"

"Fuck no!" Dean flapped his hands, and shook his head, the sneer turning quickly into open mouthed incredulity, "Unlike you I am not a fourteen-fucking-year-old girl with…Oh, God, whatever problem you are having."

"It actually might be a bit like _Flowers in the Attic_. You know they were trapped together with no one else. It wasn't as gross as it sounds in the book." Even Sam cringed at that. The vulnerability of the dream was fucking with his filter. It seemed his mouth was against him tonight.

"Oh, lord. Can we just wake up?"

"I don't know how."

"Fuck." Dean rolled his head in his hands again.

"What?"

"I have an idea."

"What?"

"Remember when I said I loved you?" Dean was blushing again. Sam wanted to look away, but couldn't. It really was kind of cute.

"Like five minutes ago? Um, yeah."

"Okay, smartass, first of all, it _was _a big fucking deal. Second, I hate you now, just so you know. And third, I think I know what your fairy fucking princess ass needs to wake up."

"What?"

Dean stood up, breathed deep, squared his shoulders and walked towards Sam.

"Here goes nothing, princess."

Dean knelt down, looking Sam straight in the eyes with a little smirk on his face.

"No, Dean, are you fucking kidding me?" Sam's heart was thumping against his ribcage and he could feel the blush rising in his face.

"Wake the fuck up!" That was all the warning Sam had before Dean's mouth was on his. And Sam fucking swooned. Lights out! Maybe Freud was right, maybe sometimes things aren't metaphorical at all.

When Sam opened his eyes he was laying on his stomach, the room was dark, except for a crack of light through the curtains. His heart was still beating wildly in his chest. He was afraid to turn his head. He could hear Dean breathing, rapid breaths at first, slowly becoming lighter and deeper. He lay too afraid to move for several minutes.

"Sam?"

Sam rolled over. Dean was looking at him…that was a shock. "Dean?"

"Does this make me your Prince Charming?" Dean laughed.

Was he seriously making a joke of this?

"Come on, Sam. It's kinda funny, right? I mean, it's kinda funny."

"No, Dean. I don't know that it is. What the fuck were you thinking?"

"Says the man that was all 'Oh, Dean, blah, blah?'"

"You, uh, you…" Sam swallowed, his mouth was suddenly full of spit. "That's what you decided to do? You're fucking crazy."

"Whatever. It worked. I mean we're out of your melon and back here on planet Sane."

"But?"

"But, shmut. Don't analyze it, right? It's a metaphor."

"A metaphor?"

"A metaphor." Dean nodded. "Freudian. Id. Ego. Whatever. It's all very symbolic. It's syzygy! I know shit. That's Jung. I'm smart as fuck! Carl motherfucking Jung. It's only _you_ think I'm dumb. And it's not at all gay or incestuous or incestuously gay."

"No?" Sam almost laughed at that one. Sam knew Dean wasn't dumb, but syzygy? That was kind of impressive.

"No, Samantha, it's just a dream, right?"

"Right."

"Sam?"

"Yeah, Dean?"

"Can you cool it now? With the, you know?"

"Yeah, Dean. We good?"

"A little grossed out, a little confused, but yeah, we're good."

Dean sounded sure. Sam knew he wouldn't be running for the hills now. And maybe things would be strained for a while, but, Sam thought, they'd gotten through some epically weird shit before—this was just another epically awkward bump in an otherwise epically fucked up road.

"So, Samantha, am I really the man of your dreams?" There was a hint of laughter in Dean's voice as he asked.

This was the way Dean was—disarm the situation, make it a joke, play it off and move on. Usually Sam hated this, but now? Now he was thankful for Dean's ability to see the "little bit of funny," in everything.

Sam hoped the little light in the room wouldn't show the blush he could feel burning his cheeks. Dean had kissed him. Fucking kissed him. Not dream Dean, real Dean. And even though it hadn't happened "for real," it didn't keep a little bolt of lust from thumping around in Sam's chest. It wasn't necessarily a passionate kiss, it wasn't desperate, but it was weirdly intense. He wanted to press his fingers to his mouth, wanted to remember the way it felt, but the feel of Dean's lips had faded with the dream. It wasn't real, Sam told himself. But that, that was a lie, and now, he'd just have to keep on lying.

"Sure, Dean," Sam pushed as much sarcasm as he could into his response. "You're my fucking knight in shining armor."

"Damn right I am!" Dean crowed, his laughter so bright sounding in the small room that Sam winced.

Dean rolled away from him, cracked his shoulder and said "Go to sleep. No dreams."

"I promise, no dreams," Sam said, looking at the curve of Dean's shoulders in the darkness. As he rolled onto his back, he did press his fingers to his mouth. What the fuck? Sam thought. What the fuck have we gotten ourselves into? There was no way in hell he'd be able to fall asleep now.


	3. Chapter 3

Title: Polaris  
>Author: James Parker Lombard<br>Rating M: Language, Wincest (Dean/Sam), Dean Freaking the Fuck Out!  
>SpoilersSet: Season 3 between Ep. 12 "Jus In Bello" and Ep. 13 "Ghostfacers" (best episode ever!)  
>Characters: Dean and Sam Winchester (Chapter Three, Dean POV)<br>Word Count: 10,132  
>Summary: Stupid Sam and his stupid…everything.<p>

**Polaris**

_Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.  
>-Carl Jung<em>

All along the I-80 corridor heading east, Polaris rode high and brilliant outside the driver's side. Dean sighed into the wind, chewed at his bottom lip, and tapped a rhythm on the chrome trim of the window. Dean had a problem, a growing, gnawing problem. Sam had done some number on him, for sure. The dream had disarmed him; he played it off, but an indefinable pain kept bubbling just below the surface of his skin. Sometimes it felt like sorrow, sometimes like fear and sometimes it tried to reshape itself, twisting devotion and desperation into a new feeling.

It the days since the dream everything was fucked. The countdown loomed over both of them. Sam filled his hours with research, worked until he passed out with Latin on his lips. Some nights Dean willed time to stop, other times he wanted it all over with. He thought about leaving, thought briefly about high-tailing it east and letting the impala sink into the ocean. He could almost feel the water rushing over him, sweet. It felt like a good way to die, just running out of land, out of road. He thought somehow it would be better on both of them in the long run if he disappeared, but he couldn't leave. He wanted his death, his deal, to feel like a decision because otherwise he knew Sam would turn it into a personal failure. He didn't want Sam to be there when the Hellhounds came for him. Never wanted Sam to see him die, broken and mortal, weak and just fucking finished. Wow, had Dean failed at that.

Sam found the case, a missing reporter investigating a "Mystery Spot," in Broward County, Florida. It seemed like a long shot, but Sam was into it. Dean reckoned Sam didn't really care if it panned out or not. If there was something supernatural among the black lights and carnival fun house décor they would stop it, if not…at least they were still moving, still trying to tally points for the good guys as the clock wound down. The trickster, the same motherfucker from the college Dean couldn't seem to remember the name of, Oberlin? Otterbein? Obetz? Whatever, it was done. The same trickster who set them at each other's throats, had them needling each other, playing them like a harp. Sam had been in massive bitch mode, nit-picking everything, "Dean this, Dean that," like a fucking harpy wife. They had called Bobby in for help and, what did Sam call it? Arbitration, yeah, that's it. They'd never gone up against a god. Dean had never killed a god, but goddamn…who had? Not Dean, apparently, the fucking trickster wasn't dead after all. It had just been waiting to fuck with them a little more.

Sam spent months, he said months, in a _Groundhog's Day_ loop watching Dean die over and over again in absurd and random ways. Dean remembered nothing at all except the one day. So he was a little shocked at Sam busting ass out of the diner and threatening a seemingly innocent man. But it all went back to "normal." With the snap of the trickster's fingers Sam's long day disappeared.

Sam leapt out of bed, hugging Dean just a little too long. Sam's cheek pressed tight and hot against his ear, his breath sweet and heavy on Dean's neck. When he finally spoke-it was that, the breathing, not the half-unintelligible words, that threatened to destroy Dean in that instant. It kind of felt like fainting. It kind of felt like drowning. He wasn't exactly sure what it felt like. Maybe love?

They hit the road on empty stomachs at Sam's insistence. Sam drove, forced the keys from Dean's hand and didn't give him a chance to object as he shoved duffels and weapons into the car. He pushed Dean towards the passenger's and peeled out, foot heavy on the pedals-fifteen feet of black skid leading away. When Dean asked him "where to?" he said it didn't matter, "just away." Sam didn't speak more than 100 words for the next 300 miles. He just kept switching his gaze from the road to Dean in random intervals like he expected him to disappear. Sam's knuckles were white on the wheel, and Dean could watch Sam's heart beat in the veins inside his wrist, tapping staccato as a Rush jam.

"Sam, it's fine. It was just a game, a shitty fucking game. We should have ganked that motherfucker."

"No!" The word echoed so loud in the small space that Dean flinched.

"Okay."

"And, I hate Florida. Let's never go to Florida again, okay?"

"Sure, Sammy, No more Sunshine State. You know," Dean offered, trying to mask his concern with a chuckle, "I thought for sure you'd love it. I mean, it is America's wang."

"Hilarious."

Sam wouldn't stop until they made it out of Florida entirely, so they took turns driving the 12 hours straight through. He was still wired when they reached the Alabama border, and a little town called Loxley. At least they had a Waffle House. Finally, food.

Sam didn't let him out of his sight for the next four days. Like literally, Dean would go to the bathroom in a diner, and Sam would go with him. Dean would go into the gas station to buy a candy bar, and Sam was within smacking distance. Sam sat on the floor waiting for Dean to get out of the shower. The last one was especially unnerving.

Dean called Bobby…arbitration. He needed a sounding board, but Bobby told him to stop being a mother hen and fronted them a quick gig in Texas, "something simple," he had said. In St. Jo, Texas they stole a creepy-ass haunted photo out of the Texas Kings Hotel. The ghost didn't even surface when they salted and burnt the cracked sepia photograph in the sink of what was probably officially the nicest place Dean had ever stayed. Each room had a kitschy western theme. They stayed in "The Bunkhouse." It was a little fruity to be honest, but the beds were soft and sheets smelled like fabric softener. Not that it helped either of them sleep. Dean could feel Sam's eyes on him, but decided to let it go.

The next morning Bobby called with a heads up on Bela, that fucking bitch! Dean could forgive her for being a cheat and a skut, but she was the _only_person to ever walk away from shooting Sam, even if it was just in the shoulder. He hadn't seen it coming; another scar on Sam—over the years his body had become a topographic map of Dean's failures. They high-tailed it to Monument, Colorado only to find that she set them up, called the cops, disappeared like a thief in the night, which was, Dean reckoned, what she was. When Henricksen walked into the room, smug satisfaction painted on his face, Dean vowed to kill her twice. The Colt, and their one sure-fire means of ending this deal, snatched from his hands once again.

Another cluster-fuck, Dean thought, as they shuffled into the Podunk police station. Maybe easy to escape if it were _just_ the local cops, but Henricksen was another matter. The FBI didn't fuck around. There was a split second in the cell, Dean chained to Sam literally, as well as metaphorically, when the light from the chopper shone through the window on Sam's upturned face, that he froze. Henricksen had said, "Take a good look at Sam, because you'll never see your brother again." He froze. It cut too close. Henricksen didn't know the truth; he thought of them as two-bit mind-fucked and abused killers at the time. But the threat cut deep and he felt a flash of fear. If this didn't separate them, the next thing would-Dean's deal. After Henricksen walked away he wanted to look at Sam, to take that "good look," meeting his eyes straight on , but Sam wouldn't even glance his way, he focused only on the chains that bound them.

"Dean, are we fucked?" Sam asked rubbing his wrists.

"Aren't we always?"

Sam's laugh was tinged with pain. "Yeah."

A cluster-fuck—a fucking demon ambush. Thanks to the tattoos they picked up at a schiesty looking place in West Hollywood, at Sam's insistence because Dean didn't need another distinguishing mark, they had survived, but at what cost? Dean rubbed his hand absentmindedly over the mark above his heart and sighed. It was all shit: Henricksen dead, Lilith on their tails, that sweet little virgin who ran the reception desk, Nancy; man, Dean, or Sam, should have thrown her a little love. But, maybe she'd get lucky in heaven, because seriously if virgins didn't get to pull all sorts of mad tail up there, then that was all kinds of fucked up, and maybe there wasn't a god at all.

Ruby had been useful, and maybe, _maybe, _saved their asses, but that fucking demon skank rubbed him all the wrong ways. Why couldn't Sam see it? Her disregard for human casualties showed her for what she was, nothing better than her black eyed brothers and sisters. Plus, she used their caring against them. Fucking toying with Sam until he half believed they should sacrifice Nancy-nice-nice on a goddamn altar, cut her heart clean out. Fuck…Ruby was poisoning Sam, filling his head with lies about saving Dean—turning him into Sam's weakness, although that was nothing new.

She _was _right about one thing though; this was a fucking war. They were soldiers on the front lines of battle, and Dean's tour of duty was running out. War could do some fucked up things to a man. So could the looming threat of hell. Dean kept wanting to hold on, to cling to whatever little scraps of peace or beauty or, well, fucking anything good that he could. But, as always the only thing good within arm's reach was Sam, and that was one bridge he wouldn't cross— more bitter impossibility than regret. He had ass-loads of regrets, so he knew the whole "Dying without regrets" thing was nixed right away, but he felt like he should do something. There had to be some way to leave the right way, just in case.

They had watched the news report in horror, and Ruby laughed, mocked them, called them cowards. He barely resisted slipping a knife between her ribs. It wouldn't have killed her, but it would have made him feel loads better.

Later that night Sam stitched the bullet wound in Dean's shoulder carefully. All the time bitching low in Dean's ear about how close, about how if the bullet had entered four inches down his arm on the inside, or the scant seven inches towards his heart, then… Sam said it like it was somehow his fault, so Dean set his hand over Sam's cheek. He had meant it as a thank you, but Sam turned his head sharply away, "don't do that." Dean didn't know what he had done, but when Sam turned back there were tears in his eyes. Sam placed his hand on the tattoo above Dean's heart and shook his head like he was trying to empty it of thoughts.

There were moments, like that scattered through their days. Points when he thought, fuck it, what worse sentence could he hitch himself to? He was already going to hell, after all. All those fucking demons already panting, already rubbing their dicks just thinking of ways to torture his sweet ass once he got down there. Maybe he should take some sweetness while he could? And what sweetness existed for Dean anyway? Just Sam. Just his stupid, tragic, fucked-up little brother.

He looked over at Sam who was, thankfully, sleeping for once, his head lolling in its customary spot, sprawled in the passenger seat, mouth slack. When oncoming headlights lit him up, he looked almost peaceful…almost. Tension played around his features in fast flickers. Fuck. Everything was getting better and worse at the same time. Dean guessed, it was always this way. Fix X, Y breaks.

After Colorado, Bobby got another blip on the Bela radar in, of all places, Salt Lake City. Utah? Utah was a drag. You could hardly drink. Dean made a habit of trying to avoid Utah as much as humanly possible. Once they got there, the trail was cold again. Bitch was good.

Then, nothing. Dean, torn muscles still aching beneath the stitches, was itching for a case, something simple, so they could feel like a fucking success for once. As if one point in their column would add up to anything of significance. They thought about heading to Bobby's just to check in, when Dean remembered the pattern of of The Morton House haunting from Dad's old journals—mounds of disappearances in an abandoned house, all of them on February 29th. A leap year haunting. One night a year the abandoned house beame a death trap. Perfect timing

When Dean said, "We can't fuck this one up, because there's no catching it on the flip-side," he thought it was innocent, just a little joke between mouthfuls of eggs and burnt bacon at a diner outside of Coalville, Wyoming. Sam took it the wrong way and stopped speaking and looking at him for the rest of the night.

They were off, headed to bum fuck Iowa, I-80 all the way through the nothing of Utah, then Wyoming, Nebraska and the flattest most boring stretch of road, outside of Texas, that existed. He loved the 80 at night, though. The sky was huge…fucking crazy big. With the sky full of stars and Sam asleep beside him, it felt like normal for a while. There were short stretches of normal, where peace seemed to steal over them. One car moving through the night carrying everything he loved. The normal was brief, punctuated by the brief panicked unwinding of Dean's brain. Fucking brain. Who needs one? Since there was no way to shut it off, sleep seemed ridiculous. Dean figured he might as well drive, let Sam rest a while.

"You're gonna stop right?" Sam's sleep-soft voice sent a frisson through him. Dean thought, someone is walking on my grave. He didn't answer. Sam didn't ask again. Dean resisted a sudden urge to throw his arm around him, to narrow the space where they began and ended. That was still dangerous stuff. Dean tightened his fingers around the steering wheel and sucked in a lungful of cold February air.

In the dream when he had decided to kiss Sam, he half believed his own bullshit. Syzygy, how had he pulled that old gem out of his ass? The thing was, Dean got it, Sam was sort of his other half in some ways, Anima to his Animus. It was maybe a little like _Flowers in the Attic_, only no one was Kristy Swanson in their fucked up all-male, road-trip, shoot-em-up remake. Somehow, in the dream, Dean knew that a kiss was the answer. Sam had kissed him twice in that dream, once all innocent and light, and once all brother-rapery forceful…but it was Dean who realized like a light bulb over his head that he needed to man up and lay some sugar on his little brother if he wanted to get out of that awkward as hell room and Sam's doubly awkward as hell head. No matter how he spun it, it came out wrong.

Sam's girly brain had made Dean the white knight in some fairy tale. He had to cross a field of torture, ford the fire swamps! Sam was motherfucking Buttercup! At least there weren't any R.O.U.S.s. Rats were the worst. And, yeah, maybe that wasn't quite right, but it was funny as fuck. Sam would always be his damsel in distress. And I would make a fantastic Dread Pirate Roberts, Dean thought.

In truth, it had felt less like a fairy tale and more like Dante's _Inferno_, if he were being honest. At least there weren't nine whole levels of hell to cross before he found stupid Beatrice getting a hand-job from another imaginary Dante. How is that not a brand new twist on the idea of hell? Hell. Dean tried not to think about hell. What had Ruby said, a prison of flesh and bone? "Like _Hellraiser_ without the custom leather." Fuck.

Dean kept telling himself that it didn't matter that the clock was winding down. They would find a way out of this deal and Dean would be free as free, as long as that way didn't involve risking Sam. And even if they didn't find that magic loophole, it was a fair trade. Dean would do it all again.

When Sam was laying lifeless, spinal cord severed by that jackass, Dean came to a realization. Sam could survive without Dean, but it didn't quite work the other way. Two days Sam was dead. Two days Dean was dead right there with him. Yeah, yeah, he breathed, moved, but some big chunk of him had been torn out. Some crucial part that he needed, like his lung, no both lungs, heart , spleen…maybe other stuff too. Something like his soul. Dean couldn't eat, couldn't think, sleep…it hurt to breathe. When he sent Bobby away he knew he had one of two choices: make a deal, or lay down beside Sam and die. Those were the only options. Option one gave him more time, but option two had looked just as good at the moment.

Suddenly, the year seemed to pass too quickly. A year. Time was relative right? What's that old adage about the way a minute feels? Put your hand on a hot stove and a minute seems to last forever. Be granted one last minute with the one you love and a minute is no time at all. This year took no time at all. Not that he was like…okay, so he admitted it, he loved Sam. He had even said it out loud…like twice, and that's fine. That was normal. The abnormal, well…that could be smothered effectively with a little foresight and optimism.

Unfortunately, Dean knew he ran short on both of those. He was a master of going with his gut instinct. Bad idea in this case, since that's what had him taking the stupid Dream Root to start with. And, he had to admit he wasn't nearly as bright and sunny, disposition-wise, as he used to be. Not that he was ever daisies and merry go rounds. The literal threat of hell could do a lot to damper a person's positive outlook on life, he supposed.

Dean took the long way, rural routes and dirt roads once they reached Iowa. He did it as a sad attempt to stave off the constant sleeplessness he felt, and to let Sam sleep. Two birds; one stone. The sun was just rising into a grey-blue sky when Dean decided to pull into another of those lonely-looking motels that served as waylays in their lives. February 25th. Four days to kill until the haunting went down. Four days of research, and the library…if this town even had a library. Four days of trapped in the hotel with Sam and this, whatever…this sickness, this…getting stronger.

In the room Dean hit the shower while Sam salted the doors. Sam mumbling a little blessing under his breath. He'd been doing it for years, since high-school, since before Dean snagged him from Stanford and Jess. Dean's never bothered to decipher it. Salt works, no blessing required. In the shower he felt sleep creeping at his periphery, finally.

"Don't wake me, like ever. " Dean threw his arm over his face, crooking his elbow to block out the light, crossing his fingers, hoping for not just sleep, but sweet, sweet dreamlessness. Fat fucking chance.

Sam's sickness had invaded his dreams. He played and replayed the scene he witnessed, only every time it looked a little better. Sam's head tilted back, his muscles straining against the handcuffs, back arching up into Dean's…no, not Dean's…touch. Sick. Fucking sick. The way that not-him was pulling fucking moans out of Sam that sounded close enough to pain to worry Dean…fuck, seriously. Fuck. His name spilling out of Sam all breathless and…goddammit! Good. They sounded good.

Even if he were to, and there's no fucking way in hell that would happen, it couldn't happen now. He'd be gone soon. Dead as a proverbial doornail. Well, hopefully not, but…there went his optimism again. He had to plan for the practical. Things like teaching Sam about the car, or reminding him that he cared. Maybe they _could_ do something a little special? Take a vacation? Nah, Sammy wouldn't, couldn't, go for that with the deadline approaching. Deadline….heh, Dean hadn't noticed before, Dead. Line. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200 dollars.

He could hear Sam's fingers clicking soft and deliberate on the laptop keys.

Sam. Dean sighed and shifted in the bed, curled on his side to keep from watching Sam type. He could picture it in his head anyway. Mouth squinched to the side, Sam's eyes roving over pages of text, fingertips dragging the touchpad as he bit at the inside of his cheek, leaning forward to look closer at the screen, elbows akimbo, one hand on his chest just above his heart. Dean had thought about it. What would Sam do, if he just got up, walked over and fell against him, begged for, well, Dean didn't know what for…closeness? Sweetness.

But shit like that, shit like them…fucking nuts. There's no fucking way in hell he'd do that to Sam. Brother, best friend, baby, yeah, baby…Sam was his. But, he couldn't add another epithet to the top of that list. I mean, even if it wasn't like the wrongest fucking thing in the world, then he'd still be gone soon.

He was half-asleep, drifting in that limbo between, so he only half-heard Sam's steps, only half-felt the heat of him leaning in. Sam kissed his forehead as he slept, whispered, "I will save you." Dean felt like crying. He didn't know what to do, so he feigned sleep, bit back that stupid girly swell of emotion that kept threatening him. But hadn't he done the same thing? Hadn't he?

Three nights ago in Salt Lake Dean awoke in a sweat, having dreamed all sorts of wrong. Wrong that Sam had put there, because Dean would never have imagined _that_ without having seen it, seen them, in full Technicolor grope-ery. When he woke there Sam was, four of the furthest feet away he could ever imagine. Dean rolled out of bed, literally, rolled. Onto his knees to narrow the gap. He pressed his lips as softy as he could to Sam's cheek, breathed him in. He was a fucking molester. Chester the molester. Bleh.

When Dean "awoke" in the afternoon it was to a low golden sun and the smell of thick coffee.

He swung round to sit on the edge of the bed. Sam was looking out the window, the light of the setting sun on him made Dean gasp a little. Just a little. Sam turned, looking exactly like a backlit saint in one of the churches they siphoned holy water from. Ridiculous. Sam rolled his shoulders and the bones popped.

"Hey," he said.

"Um, hey."

Sam walked towards him, arm doubled up to rub at the back of his neck. "Man, sleeping in the car does a number on me sometimes."

"Well, you are a giant."

Sam smiled as Dean reached for a cup of coffee.

"Wanna eat?"

"Yeah, I'm…man, I'm tired, but…"

"Let's go grab something then. I've been waiting for you."

"Yeah." Waiting.

Sam's shirt lifted when he stretched his arms up over his head, resting his softly-scarred knuckles on the popcorn ceiling of the room. Dean had to look away, to move away, to escape the faint metallic whiff of Betadine and powdery fabric softener that hung in the air, whuffing up from Sam like home and heat. His gaze stuttered landing on nothing as he stepped back too quickly—clumsy, startled. Dean tried to control his face, aware of his habit of showing too much emotion at exactly the wrong times. He tried to will the blush from his cheeks as his blood pressure rose. Oh, they were good and fucked now.

"What's up with you?" Sam's head rotated slowly, his eyes focused on Dean, scrutinizing.

"Nothing." Another lie. Everything is wrong. Everything.

Sam raised an eyebrow and cocked his head, but didn't press further.

Three more days passed. Three more days of shit tension and something hot scampering beneath his skin. Only breathing when Sam was out of eyeshot. Then…

Dean had a belly full of diner food and he'd been able to shake off the suffocation of the room. He felt awake. And for once, alive. Sitting across from him, Sam had said "We should go out." Dean couldn't help but smile, nodding his head like a maniac as he sipped his coke.

It was a good night, one accidentally beautiful. The air was cold and fresh. It made Dean want to bare his teeth and snarl as he felt the loose gravel of the lot crunch beneath the tires- another cinder block bar at the corner of nothing and nowhere. This one framed by fat Christmas bulbs from the late 70s, half-burnt and half-brilliant reflected back against the smooth black of the hood. And Sam beside him, the lines of his forehead evened out for once into a smooth plane. Dean couldn't help but clap him on the thigh and smile. Sam laughed, and rolled up the passenger's. It wasn't their last night on earth. In fact, it felt all new. Dean felt new, polished and half-drunk already.

The pool table was empty, so they played for fun. A handful of people knocked around the room, from table to table like so many shiny pinballs. Hit. Hit. Ping. The beer was cold, the whiskey burned, and Dean couldn't lose. Every ball in the called pocket. Sam loose and grinning as he leaned over the table to line up a shot. They talked shit to one another and Dean bounced his head to the music, sucking in the momentary bliss.

Sam shook an empty bottle at him and nodded towards the bar. So, Dean got them another round, passing crumpled dollars over the wood counter. It was marked with decades of graffiti. He traced his finger over a "Rebecca loves James '73" and grinned, hoped they were still around, still in love. And a little sadness seeped into his mood maybe. Dean knew he could never have that.

Dylan's "Knocking on Heaven's Door" clicked on the jukebox and all of a sudden it felt like a prayer. Someone had good taste. He looked over his shoulder, Sam's long fingers were punching the buttons of the jukebox, a furrowed brow and a weird sad smile on his face as the chorus spilled out into the dim lit room. There were moments in bars that just happened like this, like fucking fate or poetry, maybe poetry. Every conversation that had rattled the echoing space of the room failed in the wake of some communal sigh. In a trick of light, or the glaze of a hard buzz, everyone went beautiful in a way that made Dean's hands shake. Sam grinned when he caught Dean's eye, and it was equal parts goofy and stunning. Dean had to look away.

A red-haired girl swayed silently in a booth near the pool tables, her eyes were closed as she tapped her fingertips on the brown bottle of PBR in front of her. Dean had noticed her when he walked in, kinda thick and soft looking, with the kind of pretty face girls like that had without even knowing it. She had been, of all things, reading, twirling one messy school-girl braid in her fingers-terminally pretty. It was too far away to hear the lyrics that spilled from her, but he knew her voice would be honeysuckle and still water. I am a fucking poet, Dean thought.

He ordered two Rolling Rocks, a double on the rocks and a PBR. She was tapping a cigarette on the table when he walked up.

"What?" She smacked the book hard against the table top, looking up like him like some Botticelli angel with a serious temper issue. She was reading Faulkner. Who reads Faulkner in a bar?

"What? What? " Dean smirked. Sweetness. Something to drive the undercurrent of pretty-wrongness that swam up through this night like anathema.

"What what, indeed." She said, frowning. "Is that it? You just walk up and 'what what' a girl?"

Sassy.

"I brought you a beer."

"That's more like it, sugar." She lit up and took a long drag.

"Can I bum one?"He said, sliding into the booth across from her.

"It'll cost you." There was something intense in her eyes he hadn't expected, but he laughed as she slid him a camel from her pack. She hadn't smiled yet. She was sizing him up.

"How much?" Dean flashed her some teeth, the kind of smirk that he knew made most women wiggle in their chairs.

"A beer," she grabbed it from across the table and tilted it into her mouth before setting it down hard, "and some lies."

"Lies?" A weird girl. "Not the truth?"

"Said lies—meant it. Who wants the truth in a place like this?" She took a drag and tapped the cigarette on the edge of the ashtray, watched it fall away. "What made you sidle up here with heart break all over your face? No cure, huh?"

Was he that readable? Was she a psychic? Something worse. "Christo." He muttered looking at the ceiling.

"I'm not a demon." She said, and Dean balked wiping the smile from his face. Suddenly the room felt too still. "Dude, really?" She shook her head, braids brushing her shoulders.

"Um…" What the fuck? She had looked normal from across the bar. Didn't look like a hunter, that was for sure.

"It's what exorcists say, you know? To tell if someone is possessed. You know that, right? Seven demons in Mary Magdelene abhorred the name of Christ. Christo." She raised an eyebrow and took a drag from her cigarette. Dean exhaled, not a hunter, not a demon, just a fucking bookworm. Like Sam.

"You gonna light me."

"Ha. Yeah, yeah." She reached across the table and held the flame for him, grinning for the first time. She had one dimple on her right cheek. "You must think I'm a freak."

"Sister, I've seen weirder." He waved Sam over from the jukebox. "You have _got_to meet my brother. You'll have loads in common." This isn't what he had planned, but it would do, Dean thought. He had planned on sliding his hands over her softness, licking the smoke from her mouth, but Sam might need it more. This would be better. Sam smiled and slid in beside him, their legs touching briefly, their fingers touching briefly as he handed him the beer.

"Sam, you should meet my new friend, um…"

"Amanda."

"Amanda. Yeah, Amanda here just told me that demons, um, what was it?"

"Abhor the name of Christ?"

"That's it." Dean laughed at the flash of confusion across Sam's face. Everything about that was accidentally, positively, radiantly beautiful.

Dean bummed two more cigs from her pack while Amanda and Sam talked. Both of their hands becoming more fluid, more dynamic, more weirdly animated. Just like normal people, just right. Sam getting his nerd on, throwing five and ten cent words across the table to eager ears. And she threw them right back, scoffing and laughing between gulps of beer. Two more whiskeys and Dean was in a slow fuzz, leaning in the corner of the booth just watching, trying to memorize Sam's expressions. So deep in a bottle he was almost past words. This would fix them, a nice girl. The kind of girl who might understand. He knew there were some. Dean wanted to hold this moment up like a snow globe, a locket, a reminder…there were girls, other people, who might love Sam, who might understand.

Then, Sam fishing in his pocket for change, sliding those long legs towards Dean and smiling when their legs bumped. Then, Sam striding towards the jukebox with purpose, smashing keys for song after song. Something bluesy spilling into the bar, making the light swim in Dean's head. Then Sam giving the girl a nod that meant come on, dance.

They swayed in the small space near the jukebox, still rattling on for a minute. A grey haired man pulled his tiny wife off a barstool and they joined in. Couples congregated and Dean felt alone. He walked to the bar, one more wouldn't kill him.

Dean was startlingly drunk when a version of Dire Straits "Romeo and Juliet" he hadn't heard before came spilling out of the jukebox. He knew the lyrics, but had never really listened. Now they stabbed at him. "How can you look at me like I'm just another one of your deals?" Dean swallowed hard, felt the whiskey swim in him, heating his throat. Dean felt ridiculous, moon-eyed and booze softened, trying to crack the code of a song that crackled out over buzzing bar speakers just to torment him. "I'll love you like the stars above, I'll love you till I die."

Looking down into his glass, he swirled the half centimeter of whiskey in the bottom and felt something snap like a trap around his chest. When he raised his head again, Sam's eyes bore into him from across the floor. "I can't do anything, but I'd do anything for you. I can't do anything but be in love with you." Dean swallowed hard, trying to strip the emotion from his face. Sam smiled at him. He was all lit up, shining, then he spun the girl, his hand splayed across the small of her back. Her laughter was sharp and melodic. It felt like a knife.

He remembered teaching Sam to dance before his 11th grade prom—the stupid, awkward obligation of taking the role of "girl" to little brother already an inch taller than him. Sam all elbows and knees and rickety bones and laughter that echoed around the living room of the hotel-apartment. Dean had been left bruised; it was worse than sparring. Sam's flipper-sized feet stomped his toes, spun him into a wall. Two weeks of dull, throbbing closeness before Sam was proficient enough to half-sweep Dean off his feet. He remembered feeling bad for the freckle-faced girl Sam had asked out.

Sam had gotten better. Jess must have taught him. He could picture them, dancing in the living room, feeling the cares of an everyday life roll off of them—Dean a million miles from Sam's thoughts, or only flickering in the corner of a memory while he moved his hips to the music. And what he felt wasn't jealousy, not exactly. Someone had seen a side of Sam, had touched part of his life he couldn't. Jess had taught him to dance, and a girl in a bar shifted against him now, reaching up to run her hands through the back of Sam's hair like it was the most normal thing in the world. Resting her cheek against his chest, just above the tattoo they shared.

Dean shoved the feeling down and shoved ten bucks under his now-empty glass. He didn't look back when he walked out.

Sprawled across the hood of the car, he waited, too drunk to go back in, and too drunk to even drive the short distance from the bar to the motel. The stars shuddered and wavered as his breath rose into the winter sky, fog thick. He pulled his jacket around him and shoved his hands into his armpits for warmth. This would work. Sam would see. Sam would wrap that girl up in his arms and they'd be normal for a night, just a guy and a girl in a simple bar hook-up, nothing messy or unfortunate. Not the end of the world. Dean would spend a night alone, first in a long time. He could clear his head. Get the smell of Sam off of his skin. It was good. It would work. Dean could fall asleep like this. Maybe he did, just a little, awaking to Sam's voice off to his left.

"Please tell me you aren't passed out?"

Dean didn't open his eyes when he responded. He could hear the slight slur, behind the Kansas-lilt that placed him, as the words spilled out. "What if I was? Would you have to change your plans? Take your poor, sad drunk of a brother back to the motel? Baby him a bit?" Dean wasn't quite sure where he was going with this, or why these words were coming out of his mouth. His throat hurt, like someone was squeezing, tighter and tighter where his collarbones ended. A little fist of pain.

Sam laughed. "Amanda left." He could hear Sam's feet in the gravel as he stepped closer. "You want me to take you back? Baby you?" There was teasing in Sam's voice that made Dean want to say yes. No.

"Fuck no." Dean said, eyes flipping open, the world whirled for a quick second before centering. He pointed at Sam. Sam, framed by Christmas lights, Sam booze flushed and grinning at him like he was the biggest idiot on the planet. "Stop smiling."

Sam only laughed harder, and reached out a hand, to grab Dean's wrist. The fingers were a hot, tight loop, Dean's shoulders lifted off the car.

"Anyways, what do you care where I go? Are you mad because no one liked you?"

"No," Dean scowled. "And I don't care. I think you should go home with her, gotten a little slick on your hang down. You're not a priest, Sam."

"Right, because a piece of ass, that'll fix everything." Sam was rolling his eyes. Dean wished they'd get stuck, that'd serve him. Dean was angry but he didn't know why. Sad, too. Stupid. Drunk.

"Maybe, maybe it would. A piece of ass is what you need. A girl. Someone nerdy and soft. That girl liked you."

"She didn't. She said you were 'hot as fuck.' She might have liked you more. " The grin hadn't left his face.

"And why wouldn't she? I am…" Dean flicked his hands down in a "voila," "a total package."

"I think you mean 'tool,' right, 'total tool?'"

"Whatever to you." Dean swung his legs around and slid until his feet were steady (ish) on the ground. "She liked _you_. Like, liked you, liked you."

"Why do you care?"

"Because, Sam. Sweetness. You know?"

"Yeah, I know you're drunk." Sam threw an arm around Dean's shoulder and Dean wanted to sink into the curve of it, Sam smelled like smoke, and it was making his mouth water. He had to stop this.

He shoved Sam's arm with a, "Offa me," and stumbled backwards. "I'm drunk, yeah, yeah, but I'm not stupid, Sam. I'm not. You think I don't know things, but I do." Dean leaned against the car for support, rubbed his hands up over his face and into his hair.

"What do you think you know, stumbles?"

"I know." Dean wanted it to have some force, but it sounded like resignation. "Aw, it was such a good night. You know? A good night."

Dean stared at Sam's shoes as they stepped closer, and tried to think.

"It was a good night. And now you're drunk and morose, so gimme the keys and I'll take us home."

"Home," Dean snickered.

"Hotel, whatever."

"Go with the girl." Dean said, he looked up from the deep lean into Sam's face. His smile had disappeared.

"The girl's gone, Deano. All I have is a drunk brother who needs a little babying."

"I don't need babying. Fuck you." Dean turned, "I'll walk back."

"What the fuck is wrong with you tonight? It _was_a good night, and now you're mad why? Because I didn't go home with a woman, and because I'm not planning on slinking in tomorrow morning smelling like sex and hangover? I'm not you Dean. I don't give all my goodies away on the first date."

Dean scowled and pivoted on his heels, stepping back to balance himself. "So, Mr. Moral whatzit, fuck you. Don't judge me because you can't seal the deal."

"Do you just want to fight? Dean, you're a slut. That's what you are. You're usually proud of it."

True, but…"I'm not a slut. Dude, how many girls have you seen me with lately?"

That shut Sam up, Dean turned his back to him again. How many girls had he been with? None, for months. Like months. Before Christmas? No, further back than that…October? He hadn't even really tried to turn on the charm since, well Bela, and maybe she was hot, but she was also an immoral bitch who had stolen their gun and shot Sam.

"What are you doing, Dean?"

Dean didn't know. It had been a good night, and now he wanted to fight, he wanted to purge this stupid feeling, these stupid Christmas lights were glossing everything. The sky was fucking beautiful and he hated it. He scowled. What was he doing? He didn't know.

Dean shook his head, felt Sam slide up behind him, and was surprised when he moved in close, threading both of his long arms under Dean's and around his waist. Sam tilted his head, pressed it between Dean's shoulder blades and exhaled. It was almost a whisper when Dean said, "I don't know."

Dean hung his head against his chest, looking at Sam's hands before placing his on top of them. Through that swooning-drowning feeling exacerbated by alcohol, he felt like Sam was the only thing holding him up. The hurt was sliding up him, the pain of it. It hurt to touch; it hurt to not touch. He slapped Sam's hands away, and stepped forward with a "Stop fucking touching me."

Sam looked sad. "Why are you pissed?"

"Just. I don't know. Sam, fuck!" Dean wanted to scream. "Just, stop fucking touching me."

"I don't know what I did." Sam stepped towards him again. "You're just drunk. Let's go back, sleep it off."

"I'm not just drunk, motherfucker. You, goddamn you, why are you doing this to me?"

"Doing what, Dean?" Sam was starting to sound angry as well? "Standing here waiting on your drunk ass?"

"Yes, YES! Fucking yes, why are you waiting on me? Go fuck that girl, do it." Dean pushed him.

"Stop pushing me," Sam pushed back, both hands on Dean's shoulders so he stumbled backwards. "Also, no."

"You are so fucked up." Dean's voice sounded shrill to his own ears.

Sam's eyes narrowed, his jaw flexed, his voice low and vicious. "I'm fucked up? _I'm_ fucked up? Because what, Dean? Because I don't wanna go have sex with some random girl? Because I have other things to think about? We are running out of time! I don't know what to do, man. I'm…if I'm fucked up it's because of you. You, you… jackass!"

Dean's fist cocked back and then shot out, nailing Sam on the mouth. He hadn't even meant to do it, he just needed to hit something. And Sam had been there.

Sam spat and Dean was shocked not only that his fist swung out seemingly of its own accord, but also by the brightness of blood on the white gravel. It was almost beautiful. Sam stood there startled: eyes wide with a question Dean couldn't answer, lip cracked, swollen into a pout already, smeared with blood they shared. There was blood on Dean's knuckle too, Sam's. He wanted to lick it off, but he did something worse.

He took two steps to narrow the gap between them, spun Sam and pushed him backwards against the impala. Sam's confused face swam before him when Dean's hands clamped onto Sam's biceps as hard as he could. And then his mouth was against Sam's, hard and fast. He slid his teeth over Sam's bottom lip tasting blood. Dean wanted it to hurt, but Sam groaned, and it was the same sound he had made in the dream. Dean panicked.

"Oh, god." Dean let go, stepped away, wanted to throw up.

"You…" Sam's hand was on his mouth like Dean had burnt him.

"That's not…" Dean's hands shook in the air in front of him, he squinched his eyes shut.

"You kissed me." It wasn't horror, and for some reason that surprised Dean. It sounded like awe.

"I…" Dean did something he never thought he'd do…he ran. He had never run from a fucking thing, and he was running. The gravel rolled beneath his boots and he picked a direction, across the road a field, then trees. He willed himself faster and faster. Ignored the pumping of blood in his head, the nausea swimming around in his stomach. Oh, god, I need to be faster, he thought, there is no way in hell I'll outrun him.

Sam's legs are three inches longer than Dean's. Sam has been faster than Dean since he grew into them. He knew he'd be caught. He heard Sam closing in behind him, heard him calling, "Dean, Dean."

He had to hide. His legs didn't stop moving: hide, hide, hide. There, the shelterbreak bounded into focus. His lungs were burning as he headed for the treeline. Sam had stopped yelling his name. Dean hid, his back against a tree, he leaned over sucking in deep gasps of night air. Thinking the whole time, "what the fuck?"

Of course Sam found him. Dean made a break for it again, stomping through leaves, trying not to tangle himself in roots, a low branch scraping across his jaw and he flinched. Two seconds later Sam's shoulder rammed into his back and he was airborne for a split second before landing face down in the leaf litter. Sam on top of him. No. Sam fighting to turn him over. No. Sam saying his name like a question. No.

"Dean, you motherfucking baby!" Sam twisted him around, straddled his body. Dean slapped out wildly like a girl. "Dean, open your fucking eyes."

"No, get offa me. Get offa me, Sam. Get offa me!" Dean screamed at him, and a sob built in his throat.

Sam only pressed against him, "No." He could feel Sam's breath on his face, and he grimaced, eyes still tight. "You fucking look at me. Are you that much of a pussy?" Sam's hand gripped Dean's hair tight at the roots, shaking him.

Dean screamed, honest to goodness screamed. This was not what should be happening, he thought. Sam should be balls deep in that girl right now, not doing…what the fuck was he doing? Sam's mouth smothered his yell, Dean went stiff with shock. And a litany spilled from Sam lips, between kisses and moans both ridiculous and soul-shattering.

"Dean, you. Motherfucker. Why? I can't. You. You fucking. So stupid. God. Couldn't just leave it alone? Couldn't just. Goddamn. Your fucking mouth. You fucking hit me. You. You. Please, Dean? Please. Fuck. I want this. I…just please?" Sam was begging, Sam's tears running into his face, and Dean felt his eyes roll back, felt the little bit of resistance twanging in his brain. He felt paralyzed, numb against the ground with Sam shaking above him, both of their bodies sinking into sorrow. Dean willed his arms to move, to pull Sam closer, smooth his hand through his hair, like the girl had done. His. His Sam. His Sam, crying.

Sam's hands were twisting the collar of his jacket, his mouth hot, sobbing against Dean's neck. Begging, "You give me this."

No. "No, that's the worst idea ever."

"Why?"

"Because I'm going to die. You've already lost so much."

Sam backed off, and Dean could see his eyes, serious, shining. "Then you should have left me dead. I've got nothing left. I'll have nothing left of you. Give me this, Dean. Give me this?"

"I don't even know what the fuck 'this' means."

"Dude, just…I dunno, go with it?"

"No, Sam, No. I'm not gonna just 'go with it.'"

"Why?"

"What?"

"Give me one good reason."

"I can give you a fucking thousand, starting with I am going to be dead soon and ending with this is fucked up."

Sam's face collapsed. Can a face collapse? He sobbed loudly, rolling off of Dean and onto the ground beside him.

Dean stared at the stars filtering down through the bare branches of the trees and listened to Sam cry. He resisted the urge to move towards him, to gather his baby brother into his arms again. Too dangerous. So, so dangerous. It was a long time before Sam's sobs slowed enough for him to speak. "You think I don't know that? You think I don't wake up every fucking day and want to scream? I don't give a shit. I love you. I love you. You give me this, Dean."

"Stop. Saying it doesn't…I don't even want to. It's gross. You're gross." That's a lie, and Sam calls him on it.

"You're a fucking liar."

"And what will you do with 'this,' Sam? How will 'this' fix or save anything?" Dean shifted, a stick poking into his ribs.

"I don't know."

"No. You don't because it won't. It will just make it harder."

"I'm already losing you. I have nothing else. I love you. Why don't you get that?"

"Stop. Stop saying it! You fucking girl, you fucking big emotional motherfucking girl!" Dean screamed.

"Shut up, Dean!" Sam wasn't screaming, Sam was quiet. "You don't understand."

"No, Sam, I do. I do understand, I promise you. As fucked up as this is, I totally and completely understand. Which is why this is not only eight kinds of wrong it's 3 times 10 to the 28th power kinds of wrong. This shit has gone exponential. It's gone light speed."

"Dean." Sam choked through a sob. It almost broke Dean.

"Don't you 'Dean' me. And stop fucking crying, goddammit!" Dean paused, his voice had been gaining volume again. "It's just…I don't know what to do here, Sammy. This is like way off the reservation, you know?"

Sam's voice was a whisper, "I know."

They were silent for a while. Both flat on their backs looking at the stars. All moving at light speed. Sam is his North Star. Dean can find him in a split second no matter how many other lights blind or distract him. He is the one stationary surety in Dean's life when everything else goes whirling faster and further. And Dean would like to be still for once. Wrap himself around that fixed certainty. But doing this? It would be like falling into that brightness. Sam doesn't understand that the brightness there means pain too. That this will make things so much worse.

"Dean, you don't know what it's like without you."

"Sammy, this is ridiculous. I know you love me. I fucking love you too, okay? But this, no. This is ridiculous."

"I just. I don't know. I mean…you don't know what it's like without you."

"I'm not gone yet."

"I need to know that. I can't, I've been looking everywhere and I can't lose you again."

"Again?"

Sam muttered, something under his breath that Dean could barely make out, "trickster."

"I know, I kept dying, that fucking dick. I can't believe he made you go through that over and over, but I'm here. It wasn't real. It was all some majorly fucked up head trip."

"You were dead."

"I know, baby." Dean almost bit his tongue when he heard the term of endearment slip out of his mouth. Sam just sighed.

"You don't know. You stayed dead."

"I thought you said I popped back up, all 'Heat of the Moment?'"

"Yeah, almost every time, but then…we found him, he stopped it and some guy, some random dude just shot you, and I waited…" Sam's voice started to slide higher with each syllable, making him sound younger and younger, "You died, and I held you in my arms, and you…died. A fucking random ass gunshot, just random. I waited for you to get up, for me to wake up, but I didn't wake up, Dean. Dean! I didn't wake up, you were just dead."

"How long?"

"Six months."

"Six…"Dean sucked in a long breath. Six months Sam was on his own, no wonder he had clung to Dean like Velcro.

"You don't know what I did, what I became to get you back. You don't know what I am without you. I'm dead. It's like you keep all of the good stuff with you, like you're this big bright light and all that I am, it just fizzles. You're my light, and without you, man, it's just cold, dark."

"I keep the light?" It's what the mini-Sam had said to Dean in the field. Dean still didn't quite understand what it meant, but he thought he got the gist.

"Yeah. Yeah. You…man, that sounds exactly right."

"You've said it to me before."

"When?"

"In the field, in your dream. You said that I was a big bright fire burning everything."

"I can't live without you Dean."

"Sure, Sammy, sure you can. "

"No, Dean. I know it, I felt it for six months, and I thought it would work like an amputation. All bright and hot at first, and then it would fade into phantom pains, only popping up when I was vulnerable. It didn't work that way. It was more like an infection, it…it creeped, it would sort of heat up and burn inside me this white hot flicker. It was angry and lonely and kept needling. Couldn't eat, couldn't sleep, couldn't breathe, but I kept willing my body to go. I'm not explaining it right. It was more than that, it was worse than being dead. All I wanted was more time. Just to tell you…" he faded out.

Dean was taken aback. "I know how it feels, Sam. It's…I'm weak. I had to get you back. I felt it for two days, and it is all I could take."

"I had to get you back. I would have done anything. I know that now. I will, I will, Dean, I will do anything to keep you with me."

Dean didn't know how to respond to that.

"Stay with me."

"Sam, fuck, this is…" Dean huffed, "not this, okay? Not this."

"Give me something. Just…something."

And Dean knew he could have done it, whatever Sam wanted. Whatever _he_ wanted. He rolled to his side, pulled Sam to him. It wasn't gross. It wasn't a fucking metaphor. It was a fucking disaster. He held Sam, wrapped his arms tight around his brother's sobbing form, and did the only thing he could do, the only right thing—nothing, nothing at all. It was a temporary madness. It was despair and desperation all at once. It was the only thing he knew how to do to fix this stupid, tragic moment. He had to be strong for both of them. So, he did nothing. He gave him nothing. He let him go.

Tomorrow, tomorrow was a day that only half-existed. The 29th of February-an anomaly. This was an anomaly. Dean thought they might be anomalies too. Tomorrow they would do their jobs, fix what was broken in the world, but not what was broken in each other. It would be simple. It would feel like a success.

Andrews, V.C. _Flowers in the Attic._ New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979.

Dire Straits. "Romeo and Juliet." Knopfler. _Making Movies._Vertigo, 1980. CD.

Dylan, Bob. "Knocking on Heaven's Door." _Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid_ _(Soundtrack)._Columbia, 1973. CD.

_Flowers in the Attic._Dir. Jeffery Bloom. Per. Kristy Swanson. New World Pictures, 1987.

_Groundhog's Day_. Dir. Harold Ramis. Perf. Bill Murray, Andie MacDowell, Chris Elliot, et. al. Columbia Pictures, 1993. Film.

_Hellraiser_. Dir. Clive Barker. Cinemark, 1987. Film.

Jung, C.G. _Symbols of Transformation_. Princeton: Princeton U P, 1967. Print.

_The Princess Bride_. Reiner. Perf. Cary Elwes, Robin Wright, et. al. 20th Century Fox, 1987. Film.

_Supernatural_. CW. WNUV, Baltimore. 2005-2011. Television.

Notes:

1. Read some Dante, DO IT!

2. Amanda is based on my evil twin; she is my Sam (books, darkside, the works). But, she wants very badly to be Dean. Who reads Faulkner in a bar? She does. She would also have danced with Sam. And, she does talk like that. It's kinda sad.


	4. Chapter 4

Title: Polaris  
>Author: James Parker Lombard<br>Rating M: Language, Wincest (Dean/Sam)  
>SpoilersSet: Season 3 Ep. 13 "Ghostfacers" (best episode ever!) through Ep. 15 "Time on my Side"  
>Characters: Dean and Sam Winchester (Chapter Four; Sam POV)<br>Word Count:5,280  
>Summary: Sam holds on to every moment he can, but those moments are passing too quickly.<p>

**Polaris**

The man who promises everything is sure to fulfill nothing, and everyone who promises too much is in danger of using evil means in order to carry out his promises, and is already on the road to perdition. -Carl Jung

Since Sam found the salt blessing, a variation of an old one from the Roman Rituals, he had been reciting it over the lines they lay around the windows and doors of their shoddy hotel rooms. Even when Dean laid the lines himself, Sam would take a second to press his fingers and say the blessing. Eyes closed, he recited Latin by heart, sometimes thinking it ironic that this dead, unspoken language was as close to him as living English. Too much was dead in his life already. "Ubi hoc sal aspersus depellendos potentia mali, et protege nos semper. Protegerat ma amatorem." He thought about what the words meant, and felt a little flitter of thanks that Dean had always been so half-assed at his Latin. Dean could manage, but he always got the subtleties wrong, and his grammar was atrocious. In English the blessing translated to something like "Wherever this salt is sprinkled, drive away the power of evil, and protect us always. Protect my beloved." Beloved. He had started this ritual in high school, and back then he had incorrectly translated the last part to "Protect my loved ones." When he discovered the error, he decided it didn't matter to him. Beloved. Dean would have scoffed out loud and most likely teased him for a solid week if he knew. Dean was the only loved one he had left, and even if the gesture of the blessing was just a meaningless gesture with no real power, it reassured Sam in some way, set a little more quiet in his brain. Inside the endless cycle of hotels, motels, vacant houses, and shoddy weekly rental apartments that they made into safe-havens, the salt gave him some rest from vigilance and the blessing reminded him of his priorities. Protect my beloved. But, Sam was failing at that.

Sam lay with his arm crooked over his eyes to block out the early afternoon light that flooded through the threadbare curtains of the Ho-Hum Hotel in goddamn nowhere Ashtabula, Ohio. The hotel lived up to its name, to say the least; another identical line up of bland rooms set off from the road on a curved drive. There was little else on the stretch of 20 that ran along Ohio's Erie shore. Dean had run off for a while, under the excuse of needing to wash the car, grab some carry out, pick up some beer, and, Sam was positive, something stronger. The car ride from Milan had been mostly silent. The awkward peace they felt after Dean's admission of fear had left them both in a strange place. Their father's voice, the hope it had stirred up, had Dean falling to desperation and hopelessness, and Sam had wanted nothing more than to breech the distance between them, cling to Dean and follow him down into hell if need be. Anything would be better than being without him. Dean felt alone, and Sam felt alone beside him. Two people in a room, dying of loneliness, together. It was almost laughable, if it weren't the most pitiful thing ever, Sam thought. They had a moment and instead of embracing it, they shrugged it off. They both wordlessly agreed to turn that "real moment" into to a joke the way they always had, diffusing it into something they can chuckle about. Laugh it off. Drink and be merry, because tomorrow…well, anything could happen.

Dean was grasping at straws, at ghosts and voices, crackles of static from the universe, the afterlife…anything. And Sam was right there with him. He could find nothing. Not a scrap of a way to break the deal. No spells or banishments. No loopholes. All too soon Dean would be gone, and Sam alone again like the six months he spent trying to track the Trickster and reclaim his brother, only worse…because it wouldn't be six months, it would be forever. Sam had felt the coldness of Dean's absence, and he was afraid. He knew how lifeless the world would seem, how devoid of love or humanity…and he knew how lifeless, joyless, loveless and hopeless he would become without his beloved. Despair had crept into his heart for the six months Dean had been gone, and devotion became ruthlessness, sorrow became anger all too quickly. He needed to save Dean from the torment he had so foolishly accepted as trade for Sam's now-hopeless life. Sam needed to save Dean, and not just to save himself from the darkness skittering dormant in him. Beloved. Beloved. Amatorem. Beloved. The words always on the tip of his tongue, wanting to be spoken, screamed. Without Dean the world became a cold stranger, both the universe and Sam ceased to be. Or, might as well anyway, Sam thought. And, that was true long before Dean had kissed him.

Dean had kissed him. Dean loved him. This Dean. No dream. No possession. This Dean. That night when Sam walked out of the bar, having kissed Amanda goodnight on the cheek, Dean was sprawled out flat across the hood of the car like someone had arranged him there. Sam had stood stunned for a moment, looking at Dean dappled by the Christmas lights strung around the outside of the Podunk drinking hole. That, Sam realized, was the moment it all fell into place. Those dreams of Dean may have started as metaphors, but they were more like messages. It was equal parts awkward and devastating to realize how much he wanted that fucking closeness he had only on the rarest, most imaginary, most impossible occasions.

Sam remembers the first time he pinned Dean in a fight. He was 18 and maybe Dean had allowed him to win, maybe. Sam still wasn't sure, although he had played that moment over again and again in his head. He remembers the surprise of it: holding Dean to the earth with his body. But mostly he remembers the proud smile Dean wore in defeat. It was just a smile, just one win, but Sam had wanted to cry, wanted to crawl on his knees for forgiveness, cling to his brother like his life depended on it. At that moment Sam would have traded the pain of that victory for the shame of defeat for his whole life if it meant Dean would always be bigger, stronger, faster than him.

The next sparring match was different, Dean was determined and didn't fuck around, didn't take it easy on Sam. That's the moment that Sam realized Dean had been pulling his punches. Because wow, Sam thought, this fucking hurt. Sam's wounded pride made him fight back harder, and they pounded into each other, twisted limbs and pushed, both of them scrapping for all it was worth. And when Sam was pinned this time, bruises already darkening on his body, lip bloodied, it came as a relief. Dean collapsed on top of him, breathing hard—a heavy weight that Sam accepted completely. When their breathing slowed Dean lifted himself to smile down at him, beaming and silent and, Sam thought, beautiful. A bruise blossoming on his cheekbone, a scratch on his chin that broke the skin so slightly there were raised beads of blood like garnet. Dean licked his thumb and rubbed a spot on Sam's forehead like he was a kindergartener, laughing when Sam didn't squirm. Sam was in awe. When Dean thumbed the blood still sticky on Sam's lip and then brought it to his own mouth, licking it clean, it was a spell being cast. Some sort of impossible magic ruining Sam…he panicked. It was three days later he sent the envelope off to Stanford.

And that night the dream came. There was a field, and the first time there was no Jessica gliding towards him with poison in her words, no father's anger filling the silence, no self-accusation, no silent Dean looking on with cruel and angry disappointment. Those things came later, Sam collected them, the same way as he collected regrets, letting them sink into the deepest part of himself, stronger than memories. The first dream was different, though. His subconscious had rebuilt a memory of Sam and Dean alone in a significant summer at the Blue Moon Motel, but unlike that summer of brotherly bonding, the dream became something more. Sam walked through the orange door of room 12 and the dreamt Dean who sat on the edge of the bed looked up with a blazing smile Sam hadn't seen in a long time. Then Dean reached out his hand, pulled Sam into an embrace Sam hadn't even known he wanted, and started to speak.

The dreamt Dean in the Blue Moon Motel ran his hand through Sam's hair and talked about what they could be when they were free. They could be anything, as long as they were together, that Dean had said. He told Sam, point blank, that he loved him. There were touches that led to kisses, so innocent at first. First the forehead, the cheek, the tenderest part of the wrist. Then, this Dean, so much different, and so much the same, professed his love openly, swore promises sealed with kisses that felt like worship. And Sam worshipped back, showing his love physically, giving Dean evidence, giving him everything when Dean growled words against Sam's chest between slow drags of his bottom lip, and said, "You and me, forever."

The next morning Sam had sped quickly to the shower to clear away evidence of a wet dream he knew he was too old to be having. And for a week afterwards, he felt two kinds of guilt. One kind for the dreams that he knew he shouldn't be hoping would come again. And one for the application to Stanford he only half-hoped would set him free.

And then he left, and leaving felt like a great weight tearing at his chest, but by then he was so far gone, so angry and alone…it hardly mattered. Dean didn't stop him. Not once. And Sam remembers thinking, "_He _would have stopped me." Meaning not the flesh and blood Dean, but the one he carried inside him. That Dean would never have let him go.

Sam's hands were shaking that night outside the bar, and not just from the cold. His voice shook when he woke Dean, trying to be nonchalant, though something horrible was burning in him, "Please tell me you aren't passed out?"

After that everything had moved too quickly. The words coming out of Sam's mouth were wrong; even as he spoke them he knew they weren't what he wanted to say. Dean was talking too quickly, blaming him for something Sam didn't understand, accusing him. Of what? Sam hadn't quite known exactly, not even when Dean hit him out of nowhere, a drunken half-assed punch that caught his lip at the perfect angle to split it. They were having two separate conversations, and Sam hadn't understood at all. Not even when Dean lunged at him and Sam closed his eyes and winced, anticipating the next blow… and Dean kissed him. Dean had kissed him. Dean loved him. Dean loved him too much. Dean kissed him. Not in a dream. Not in a dream. Not in a dream. Dean did it. And then turned and ran while Sam shook his head from the shock of that kiss, which broke something like floodgates inside him, like the breaking of a levy, as he ran after Dean. When it was all over, everything confessed, everything sobbed clean, Dean held him as he lay shattered and sprawled beneath the February sky, hardly anything had changed except now both of them knew, and that made it so much worse.  
>They walked back to the hotel in silence. Then they moved through their routines in silence, prepping for the hunt. And though each knew what had passed, neither said a word. In a way, Sam had expected nothing to change. Dean had said his piece. The next day was business as usual, after all they were on a mission; a mission Dean had wanted, calling The Morton House their "Grand Canyon," with only a hint of derisiveness. The only difference was in the way Dean's eyes never seemed to meet Sam's, not once that whole morning. Maybe the radio was louder than usual to deter conversation, but Sam could live with that, at least for a while. Grand Funk Railroad rattled the windows as they pulled up to the Morton House, and Sam breathed in expecting a clean haunt, in and out.<br>He should have known better. Nothing went as planned. One boy was dead, just a boy really, in over his head, and anxious to please someone he loved without reason. Now it was too late for him. Love made you vulnerable, desperate; it made you make mistakes. 6:15, the sun had set completely, and Dean wasn't back yet. Sam was almost glad of it, and that thought sickened him. It hurt to look at Dean sometimes. And that pain made Sam vulnerable, desperate and both of them…_they_ had been making mistakes.

There was a moment, he knows the Ghostfacer's camera almost caught, just as the boy, Corbin, Cor-something, spun out into a blinding light. When the tape played back in the Ghostfacers' HQ/family garage, he could see the relief on his own face, on Dean's as well. At that moment being together and whole made everything, all of the horrors they faced, and all of the pained awkwardness of the night before, fall away. The camera caught the determined stride across the room, caught the way they met in the center, coming too close to one another. Sam knew both of them felt it, that sudden need, desire really, for one another. Strong enough to overshadow the relief they felt that one more creeper had bit it, and they had survived. Sam saw his own confused want echoed in Dean. But then Spruce, Sam didn't know whether to thank God or curse him, made a noise, said something to break the moment; Sam had forgotten he was there, documenting that needy, desperate look as it flickered over both of their faces simultaneously. It seemed a shame to erase it. He wanted a closer look. He wanted to examine it. He couldn't help but think, if they had been alone that time…well, Dean would have found a way to close down and deny whatever was happening between them.

The whole incident, fast on the heels of that night at the bar had Sam thinking about documentation, evidence. They had a handful of pictures from their youth and nothing later. Jess had been wild about pictures, they were everywhere. Sam had nothing of Dean beyond the age of 12. Sam's stomach dropped as he thought about the moments he had failed to collect, moments that were slipping away and would eventually fade altogether. Maybe he wouldn't, after Dean was gone, be able to find that exact green he took for granted day by day for most of his life. Maybe all those subtle expressions that kept Dean's face in motion would still. Memory was fallible. So, Sam did what he thought was right. He went to the bar the next night, and hustled a few rounds for some extra money.

When Spruce and Maggie, two of the Ghostfacers, were trapped in the house, they kept the camera rolling. Somehow it made them feel safer to see the danger and horror through the viewfinder…maybe it would make their own tragedy seem more cinematic, less real and imposing? Sam had thought it couldn't hurt to try. The reasons for getting a camera kept adding up. As he returned the rental car in Milan, after they had used it to transport the slain Crocotta somewhere for burning because Dean hadn't "wanted the smelly son of a bitch in my baby," Sam walked to a Meijer and bought a cheap digital camera, an assload of batteries and some SD cards. He hadn't been brave enough to break it out yet. It sat in his pack for two days. He'd have to do it soon, and he'd need some way to explain. Dean would be annoyed, certainly, but there were already too many moments Sam had missed and too few left. Sam rolled on his back, spreading himself in an x across the bed, and just tried to keep breathing through the sudden panic he felt every time he thought of the date and time dwindling down. Letting the panic quell, he counted his breaths and tried not to cry.

His eyes were, Sam was sure, still red, but thankfully dry when Dean half-fell into the room, loaded down as he was with bags reading "Little Italy." The keys jangled as they hit the floor.

"Sammaaaaay! Italian," Dean smiled and sat the bags, all three of them, on the wobbly formica table. "Beer in the car, brb."

"You know you're supposed to _say_ the letters, right? It's be right back, B. R. B. not brb."

"Lol!" He smirked stretching it out into a longer version of "loll." Sam thought of dolls with broken necks and shuddered a bit, before standing.

"You okay?" Dean asked as he passed an unopened beer to Sam and cracked his own, taking a long pull before rummaging through the bags.

"Yeah, yeah," Sam's head nodded along with the white lie. "I'm fine, just tired."

"Well, you better be hungry too. There's my Ravioli…and pie…They had pie! Chocolate pie." He grinned, "Char grilled steak and Feta salad with_ olives _for you." Dean cringed as he said _olives. _"How can you eat those, man? They taste like earwax."

Sam couldn't help but smile, "You know what ear wax tastes like?"

"Shaddap." Dean rolled his eyes and grabbed the remote.

They ate in near silence, both of them having shifted their chairs to watch an edited version of _The Goonies _. Dean complained about all the good stuff being cut out, and they said their favorite lines aloud, momentarily forgetting their situation. There were moments that were like a spell, just simple life, but they were punctuated with bizarre realizations. Last _Goonies? _ Likely. Last conversation about olives? Maybe. Each realization was a sort of stabbing pain, somewhere unidentifiable in Sam's chest. He willed himself to laugh along, because he knew Dean felt it too.

Four beers each into a 12 pack of Natty Light, Sam talked Dean into walking down to the nearby park on the Lake Erie shore. While Dean was in the bathroom, Sam snuck the thin digital camera into his front pocket, but still didn't know if he had the courage to use it.

They slipped the cold bottles into Sam's backpack and walked out in silence to the jetty at Walnut Beach, to look into the huge dark nothing beyond the shore lights, where lake met sky.

"We're breaking like three rules according to the big sign there, Dean." Sam said, pointing with the bottle before tipping the dregs of his fifth beer back. They sat in the grass, Sam's long legs crossed Indian-style and tucked under him. Dean leaned forward and grabbed a stone from the gravel at the edge of the water.

"Rules, shmools. And what's with rule #6? Why can't I throw rocks? I mean I'm not throwing them at people, and it's a free country."

Ashtabula Harbor light spread across the flat dark of Lake Erie. The breakwater was a rough line visible only because it reflected nothing. Dean side-armed a stone and it hit with a heavy plash, the gold shine of the sodium lights illuminated the rings of ripples. Sam shifted his legs and as he reached between them for another beer, he slid his left hand into his pocket and took out the camera, still unsure how Dean would react.

When the harbor light made its slow sweep back toward them, he made his move.

"Dean?"

Dean's head swiveled around and Sam snapped the shot. "Goddamn, Sammy, tryin' to blind me? What the fuck? Is that a camera?" Dean held his hand up in front of his face as Sam snapped another. "Quit it."

"Come on, Dean. Show me your angry face." Sam laughed.

"You're about to see it. What's with the Alan Funk?"

"The what?"

"Candid Camera, dipshit."

"Oh, I just. I wanted some photos."

"At night? In the middle of nowhere?"

"Good a time as any?" Sam waited for the light to pass again.

"Why at all?"

It was a question Sam had half-expected, but he could come up with no reason except for the truth. A truth he couldn't say aloud, so he settled for a, "Just because."

He knew he didn't need to say more, that Dean understood. When the light swung round again, Sam snapped a few more quick frames. Even on the small digital screen he could see Dean's eyes narrow almost as if he were in pain. By the next frame that look had dissolved, replaced by a wry smile and a raised eyebrow. Cover it up, that's the way we were taught, Sam thought. Push it down, and don't touch it. Pile it with horror and false bravado until you can't see or touch what's underneath, what's real. But that wasn't true. Dean covered very little. Every emotion showed on his face if you knew the tells, and Sam knew those tells. He saw how emotion battled emotion for dominance before the veneer went up, shiny and slick and perfect.

Dean took a last swig of bear, slipped the empty bottle into Sam's pack and said, "If you take another photo of me I will dump your camera in the goddamn lake."

Sam knew he was drunk enough to almost mean it, but snapped another two when the light passed by again.

The night ended in uneventful drunken silence and a quick agreement that they should head back to Bobby's to regroup and do another search of his library. They packed up as much as they could and Sam set his cell alarm for 7, hoping to grab the shower before Dean hauled himself out of bed hung over from the two shots of whiskey he had before he passed out entirely. Sam was tempted to snap a few photos of Dean as he slept, but didn't want to push his luck. He fell asleep watching Dean's breathing in the dim light, and tried not to sob aloud when another wave of panic seized him.

Just as Sam groaned and pressed the off button to his cell alarm, Bobby called, surprising him.

"Turn the fucking alarm off, Sam!" Dean yelled from somewhere under a pile of covers.

Sam pressed the green talk button just as Dean chucked a pillow towards him. "Bobby?"

There were demon signs in Athens, Ohio—lightning in the foothills and cattle mutilations in the valleys. It wasn't far from where they were for once; a quick drive from the northeast of the state into the hills of the southeast. Just a few hours the way Dean drove. Dean said demons were actually an annoyingly common occurrence there, and looked away when he mentioned that it was why he had visited before, and how he had met Cassie.

Apparently quite a bit of supernatural phenomena were drawn to the pentagram of cemeteries that surrounded the college town of Athens, Ohio. The cemetery lay-out combined with the proximity of the Great Hopewell Road and some sort of sticky-mystical residue of the old Mt. Nebo spiritualists' compound from the late 1800s made Athens and Ohio University a magnet for a lot of what Dean grouped together under the label of "spooky crap." Last time, Dean said, had been a bunch of stupid Sorority girls trying to contact the dead right before the town's big Halloween weekend and accidentally achieving their goal.

As they passed small town after small town, Dean whipping along the back roads at a nearly reckless speed with the radio cranked, Sam's heart felt swollen and torn in his chest. The rising sun illuminated the gold in Dean's hair, and Sam tried not to stare. Leaning back against the seat he decided that pulling his hood up and shutting his eyes was the only way to keep from looking with gape-mouthed awe at his brother in his element. He was just drifting off into another fitful sleep when Dean laughed and turned the stereo louder. Sam's eyes snapped open automatically as he slipped his hand into his hoodie pocket, running his fingers over the camera's edge. What Sam wants more than anything was documentation of Dean laughing. Those laughs, Sam knows, come less frequently now, they come out of nowhere and Sam recognizes the space their absence has made. There were years when it felt like Dean's laugh was the soundtrack to his otherwise miserable life. The big laughs, those deep ridiculous, almost goofy-hysterical laughs that spread like contagion, and had Dean's eyes watering…they didn't happen anymore, hadn't happened really since Cold Oak. They certainly hadn't happened since the Mystery Spot.

What Sam wants more than anything is to not be thinking about these things. For minutes, only minutes, he forgets, and can breathe, but it all comes crashing back. As the days count down Sam is more certain that he will never see that laugh again. What he wants more than to capture that laugh even, or to find a moment's respite, is to photograph the love in Dean's eyes, to have some evidence that that love existed, that he had a brother who loved him enough to foolishly and selfishly die for him. The nausea swelled quickly at that last thought.

"Pull the car over, Dean." Sam ordered, fumbling with the belt.

"What? Sam…are you okay?" Dean said, pulling off and down along a field road. The radio went silent, and Dean barely had the car stopped before Sam was flinging open the door and heaving out acidy coffee and the remnants of breakfast. It wasn't a new thing. Since the 29th there were quite a few days Sam couldn't keep food down. He'd chew and swallow, then run to the bathroom, spill it all up in waves of bitter bile. He tried to hide it, but Dean knew.

"Sammy," Dean's voice was full of pity as Sam leaned out of the car, and rested his head in his hands, spitting onto the dull gray gravel. He flinched when he felt Dean's hand on the center of his back, circling slowly. Any hint of laughter had gone out of his voice again, Sam sank…he had done this. "Y'okay? Come' on, Sam. You're okay. Dammit, Sammy." The car suddenly turned off, and Sam felt Dean slide closer across the leather seats. Two hands on his rounded shoulders, and Sam could hardly breathe again. His chest tightening even as he sank into the touch, then Dean leaning in arching his chest against Sam's back, so he could feel the warmth even through Dean's thermal, Sam's hoodie. "Sam, you have to stop doing this to yourself."

Sam felt hot tears in the back of his throat, and wiped his eyes with the corner of his hoodie pulled over his balled fist. He felt like a child, he felt like an idiot, maybe like he was dying in slow motion. All he wanted was to turn, return that embrace and cling tight.

"Let's get off the road, get you something to drink," Dean said with finality, distancing himself again and giving Sam a firm, and intentionally brotherly, pat on the back. Sam spun in the seat, pulled his hood over his head further and stared out of the passenger's side into the green nothing, everything blurred with speed and tears.

They pulled off the road in the next little town, Glouster, Ohio, and stopped at something called Sikorski's Home Plate. Sam caught his image in the glass doorfront, his eyes still red-rimmed and his cheeks blotchy. He slid into the booth across from Dean wordlessly. When the waitress, a dowdy septuagenarian in Capri jeans, came around Sam was still afraid that speaking would set him into another jag of childish tears. Dean ordered a coffee for himself, a piece of pie with two forks, and a diet Sprite for Sam. Not a word needed to be said.

Sam was still silent when the waitress came back around with a concerned smile as she sat the drink and straw in front of him.

Sam took a long swallow and watched as Dean shake two packets of sugar into the dark coffee in front of him.

"Sometimes you put sugar in your coffee."

Dean cocked his head, surprised maybe at Sam's seemingly random observation, "And?"

"And nothing, I just notice."

"Sometimes we need a little sweet with the bitter, kid. Spoon full of sugar makes the medicine go down."

Sam felt another sharp twisting in his gut; their lives were full of bitterness in a myriad of forms. Dean survived on a minimal sweetness, fleeting and ethereal bits of goodness. Sam wanted to give him more. But there was no way to do it without causing pain, without stirring up more of that bitterness, that regret. It was like everything had sunk to the bottom of Dean's cup.

Sam had passed the point of no return the moment the real Dean had kissed him in the dream. That floodgate broke in his brain and a sort of syrupy sweet and bitter love poured into him as well, he was drowning in it, and it had made him stupid, desperate, plagued with the same thoughts over and over. He was so in love he couldn't think beyond Dean and loss.

Dean stirred sugar into his coffee, the spoon plinked against the side in a steady rhythm and Sam wanted. Dean had put the idea there, hadn't he? All that talk about sweetness in the bar, with that girl…Dean had thrust her at him, and then sulked away, splayed himself out on the hood of the car like every fucking kind of temptation. Sam remembered the taste the whiskey and cigarettes in Dean's mouth, and that desire, impossible to deny, to run his hands over the pinkish-drunk-flush skin of Dean's neck and more. He wanted to give Dean enough sweetness to carry over; he wanted to light him up with it.

But, here they were, Sam thought, broken and distant, shying away from each others' gaze over another random Formica table, twenty miles outside of a town where Dean had met a girl and maybe even fallen in love with her, where Dean had given Cassie what he would never give to Sam. Even though Sam knows Dean loves him. Knows it. Even though Sam loves him back. Nothing will change. He knows it, just like he knows that at as the days click down Dean will never give him what he wants, no matter how he asks. And Sam thinks it isn't fair, Dean's already given his soul…this would just be one little thing to carry them both through the darkness.


	5. Chapter 5

Title: Polaris  
>Author: James Parker Lombard<br>Rating M: Language, Wincest-ish? (Dean/Sam)  
>SpoilersSet: Season 3 Ep. 15 "Time on my Side" to Ep.16 "No Rest for the Wicked"  
>Characters: Dean and Sam Winchester (Chapter Five; Dean POV)<br>Word Count: 5, 864  
>Summary: Dean gets it, but it doesn't mean he's willing to take Sam down with him.<p>

"When we define the Photograph as a motionless image, this does not mean only that the figures it represents do not move; it means that they do not emerge, do not leave: they are anesthetized and fastened down, like butterflies."  
>― Roland Barthes, <em>Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography<em>

* * *

><p>For TwinchesterAngel and Paperstorm with love<p>

* * *

><p>Dean's heart pounded erratically as he floored it along the unlit two-lanes between Canaan and Erie. Sam's voice had cut out on the phone, and the panic slammed Dean in the chest so hard his teeth rattled. He rolled down the window and screamed at the sky, "Motherfucker, do not." Some sort of piebald, retarded empty threat aimed towards a God he still wasn't sure existed. "I fucking knew, I fucking knew," he repeated low and bit his lip, as he pushed the Impala forward. "No fucking cops," he shouted at no one. "Not a single motherfucking one." He should never have left Sam alone, all he could think now was "faster, faster, Sam, Sam." His fist thrust forward and cracked against the dash. "Goddamn it, Sam!" He shook the sting from his knuckles and wrapped his fingers around the familiar spine-like ridges of the steering wheel tightly. "Never should have left him alone," he kept repeating.<p>

He should have forced Sam. Hog-tied him. No, that image reminded him too much of the goddamn dreams he'd been having. So, maybe no hog-tying, but he should have done something. That fucking zombie had Sam, he was sure of it, and Dean was pretty sure the deal he made didn't cover Sam's death at the hands of the undead. When Dean rescued his dumb princess ass, because he didn't dare think that he wouldn't, or what that would mean…when Dean rescued him, he didn't know if he'd be able to calm the anger rising in him. He wanted to shake the stupid out of him, shake the reckless dumb… "Fuck!"

All of this risk, for some supposed "magic pill" that might not exist. A magic pill that meant replacing parts from live donors as parts wore out…becoming monsters, the very things they hunted, the very things they protected the oblivious masses from. Why did Sam have to make everything so hard? "Fucking stubborn-ass, stupid, asshole." Not that Sam's idea, a together forever, sounded bad. More than half of him was tempted to chase immortality. He didn't _want _to die, and a forever with Sam, whole and sound at his side…both of them safe, for once, sounded just about fucking perfect. But this was just another monkey-paw sort of a deal, just like every deal a Winchester ever made, and Sam couldn't see that.

All either of them could see was time, the thing they had the least amount of, the thing that would change everything, dwindling down. Dean had a running tally in his head, a countdown, and yet he realized he didn't know if it was Wednesday or Thursday today. The big picture made one lose the details maybe? Only that couldn't be right, Dean thought, because Sam was coming through in day-glow, in hi-def, in goddamn surround sound and smell-o-vision to boot. They were doing their thing, but the world had gone into low resolution as they moved from hotel to motel to job and back to Bobby's over and over again. Sam was the only part of the big picture still in detail, perhaps because he was only part Dean still felt like paying attention to…strict attention.

He kept trying to memorize things. He understood Sam's sudden fascination with photographs, because he was doing the same thing—trying to freeze time, trying to make as much out of what was left as he could. Given time, given a little slice of forever, without hell-hounds panting at his neck, maybe the thing sparking between them…no. Dean slammed his fist into the dash again. That wasn't a thing he had the liberty to think about. Given time the intensity of those feelings would fade, dissipating into what they should be: brotherly love. It was just loneliness, just desperation making him, making them, mistake their dedication for something it couldn't, or more correctly _shouldn't_, be. But knowing that didn't keep him from wanting to shove himself, he didn't quite know how to explain it, closer and closer to Sam, taking what love and what warmth he could.

The headlights lit up the dark, car-less road ahead of him. The high-beams raked the bottom of the pines and the strip of sky above him was lit with stars. The steering-wheel shook as he pushed the speedometer above 110, whispering over and over again the same three words: "Goddamn it, Sam."

He thought back to the last conversation he'd had, what a way to end it, on a fight; on a comparison between them and Sid and Nancy...that's what his fool brain had spat out, a reference to a tragic romantic entanglement that had ended with a suicide note about a bargain. No way he'd drag Sam into hell with him. After they dragged the demon kicking and screaming out to an abandoned farm on Scatterridge outside of Athens, Ohio, it felt like somehow hell was closer. The threat hung thick in the dank air of the cabin where they torched the fucker. They carried it with them on the smoke of their clothes in the drive back north to Erie.

Dean couldn't sleep, could hardly eat, some days he just wanted to crawl into a bottle and stay there until it was all over. He knew Sam wasn't exactly holding his own either. He didn't need Sam's breakdown by the side of the road to tell him that they were both falling apart. He watched. He noticed. Of course he had noticed, when Sam left half his meal, or when he tossed all night instead of sleeping, or how when he did sleep it wasn't happy sounds slipping out into their shared room, it was pleading mutters and heartbreaking sobs. It took all of Dean's resolve not to slip under the covers beside Sam and hold tight. Dean's own dreams had shifted from somewhat unnerving and shaming dreams about Sam, to completely unnerving and terrifying dreams of hell. Chains and rot. Cruel laughter. Darkness without end. And sometimes they were worse, sometimes it was a sort of fucked-up b-side to Sam's dream about the Blue Moon motel, the one he had infiltrated with the dream root. In the new, hellscape version he watched, pinned to the wall and struggling, while his dark double shaved strips of flesh from Sam's prone body in long curls like an apple. He was helpless-awaking with the smell of blood in his nose, and images of Sam's ruined and blood-stained corpse in his head.

It was those recurrent dreams that sent him moving towards the bathroom to empty whatever booze was left in his churning stomach as quickly and quietly as he could. Then he'd set his fingertips on Sam's ankle for just a second to steady himself, before heading outside just long enough to breathe. In. Out. Sam's scent was too much to bear in the room behind him at times…goddamn smell-o-vision. Less than 24 hours ago he had stood, with his back to the chipped blue door of the Erie Inn, and his still unsteady palms spread flat against it, and he had been tempted as hell. He wasn't even sure what he was tempted to do, though. His jaw ached from clenching. There was some nameless, some fucking ridiculous nonsense building in him…and he had thought then that maybe he just needed one day away from Sam, one little bit of time alone to see things in perspective, to get real "big picture" for once without the emotions bouncing between them, and without that nameless temptation skewing his perspective. He'd known it was a mistake when they parted. He'd known it the second he started up the car and looked to his right, finding nothing but a Sam-shaped divot in the seat Sam should have been filling. My mistake, he thought, and my fault for not turning right back around and staying put, Bela, deal, gun…how could he give a shit about any of those things if Sam was out of the picture?

There was no way Dean would let Sam die in Erie, Pennsylvania, or anywhere else. There was no way he'd squander his last three weeks either. Rufus, Bobby's friend, the most grizzled old hunter Dean had ever seen, straight up told Dean there was no chance of him surviving, that he was "wasting his time" chasing after "peashooters" and long-shots. Maybe Rufus was right, but Dean knew he'd make the same choice over and over. He'd press his mouth to the lips of any number of demons, he'd tongue-fuck whomever he had to, in order to keep Sam safe and whole. He knew his crossroads deal was a form of deep selfishness, a selfishness that was going to destroy the fuck out of both of them maybe, but he also knew he couldn't _not_give anything and everything where Sam was concerned. Nothing mattered beyond Sam. Nothing ever had.

When Dean arrived on the scene Benton had something that looked like a medieval melon-baller poised dangerously above Sam's clamped eye, and Dean had to control the urge to fling himself at Benton, to knock him away from his bound brother...the instrument was just too close to risk it. The sight of Benton bending over Sam with his hungry, milky eyes had been enough to push Dean to vindictiveness. He almost grinned as they shoveled dirt onto Benton's makeshift coffin. At that moment he felt like shoving Sam against a tree and kissing him in victory or relief. He also felt like punching him. He did neither; the lack of response had become his method of dealing with all of it.

The ride back to the hotel was silent-Sam, fuming from the passenger's side in indignation or shame...it was unclear which. The hotel key clacked when Dean unlocked the door, hands still shaking from pent-up adrenaline. And at that moment he found he couldn't look at Sam—couldn't. If he looked he would either break down completely or whatever will he had, whatever was keeping him from wringing his sorrows into the worn fabric of Sam's shirt, would fail.

He stiffened his spine and spoke without turning, "Grab your shit, Sam." Dean cringed at how much he sounded like his father in that instance. Gruff and exhausted...the drill-sergeant order sounded out of place as it rang through the room, and Sam picked up on it.

"Yes, Sir, Sir." He barked. There was venom in it, but beneath that venom that wavering tremolo of the little brother, scolded and shamed.

Dean's hands started to shake harder, and he turned away from packing his duffle to sit on the edge of the bed, closing his eyes. He tried to push down that all-too-familiar feeling of being on the edge of tears and terror as he gripped the comforter, squeezing the folds of the fabric to steady himself.

"Dean?" Sam's voice was softer, tinged with concern and emotion, "I...I didn't...I fucked up. And you saved me. You're..." Dean could hear the sob in his voice, "you're always saving me, I just wanted to, uh, I just wanted to save you this time. I..."

"Don't. I mean it's fine, Sam. Just...it's...grab your stuff please? Everything is fine." Dean lied. "Bela lifted a receipt from my pocket. She'll be after us, and we have to go. She's desperate."

"Desperate?"

"She's got her own deal made, and her ten is called. Soon. I saw devil's shoestring above the doorframe when I found her."

"What? Devil's Shoestring, there's more than one reason for that, though. Could be some other reason. "

"Above the door, Sam? It wasn't in her pocket, or some fucking hoodoo hand. It's a deal of some sort, I dunno the details." Dean opened his eyes and looked up at Sam. He was sitting across from him on the top of the press-board dresser. "I don't wanna know the details. I don't care. All I know is that she's due, and she's desperate and desperate people, well..."

"Yeah, yeah. I know, Dean." A look like pity passed over Sam's face.

"Don't. Don't you fucking feel sorry for her. She's not...she's not us. She isn't us. She used the deal to kill. And we...we've gotta go." Dean stood on weak legs and turned to the duffle again. He was low on clean clothes. They'd have to do laundry soon. Maybe at Bobby's. That quick thought almost floored him again; that something so mundane, so everyday, even still registered on the to do list...would it be his last bored afternoon at the Laundromat thumbing through two-month old _People_magazines? At least there was some upside to the end. He rolled his jeans into a tight spiral to save space.

"Okay, Dean. How much time?"

"Enough to rub it in that selfish bitch's face."

They packed the car in silence, and although Dean's little jab with the blow-up dolls normally would have kept them laughing...it just didn't feel funny; it felt mean, and tragic. They watched Bela arrive through binoculars from a hospital parking lot just out of sight, and started off just as the window of their room lit up. Then, Dean dialed.

The bits of information Bela offered had to be taken with a grain of salt.

"Sam," Dean said, hanging up the phone. "Do you think she's lying?"

"Lilith? But, wouldn't someone have known? It can't be right." There Sam went again, defending Ruby, putting his trust in the wrong person, just like with Benson.

"Can't it? If it is then Ruby has some explaining to do."

"Maybe she didn't know, Dean."

"You think?" he scoffed. "Someone is lying. Maybe both of them. We have to...we have to get to Bobby's, I guess. I don't know what else to do here, but I can't just sit on my ass."

"No one's sitting on their ass, Dean. No one. We'll...the Colt is still out there somewhere, and Ruby's knife, maybe we can..."

"No more Ruby, please. We'll just...let's just go, okay? Sam? Let's..." Dean shook his head...he didn't know what to do, but he wanted to keep moving. Standing still now, wasn't getting them anywhere.

They were in Joliet, Illinois, halfway to Bobby's and holed up in another low-rent motel in a town Dean knew they'd been to before, when Bela's number was called. He knew it was happening, but felt too numb to care. The numbness made him feel callous and shallow. He felt out of sorts. Dean stood in the bathroom doorway feeling dazed, watching Sam flip through photos. The scowl hardly left Sam's face. That stupid fucking camera; Sam snapping pictures on the sly, when he thought Dean wasn't looking. It was annoying as hell, but Dean put up with it because Sam seemed to need it.

Dean understood why Sam wanted the photos, just like he realized why Maggie and Spruce felt the way they did in the Morton house peering at horrors through the lens...sometimes their lives seemed more suited to fiction than reality. They, he and Sam, their whole lives maybe, are the flip side of something…an imitation of real. Maggie and Spruce wanted proof, something to document the hard, fantastic truths of their experience. But that's not really the deal with Sam. Dean knows that Sam wants a record, yes, but not of the horror. He wants proof of those small bits of normal, too infrequent and too fleeting in their fucking awful lives. The worst part was how this whole situation was making Dean feel like a pussy philosophy professor, all introspective and shit. He kept catching himself just staring, contemplating instead of acting… maybe making his own mental record?

Sam takes pictures of Dean doing normal things: Dean in the diner booth, filling up the car, through the glass of motel receptions, walking across sidewalks. He just hopes Sam isn't, as Dean suspects, taking pictures of him when he sleeps as well.

Photographs always seemed to miss the wholeness of moments for Dean, the texture of them. Pictures limit memory to the visual, life is much more than that-Sam is warm and alive. He smells of all the things that Dean loves and hates in their lives: orange hand cleaner, betadine, gun oil, those goddamn name-brand dryer sheets he insists on buying and shoving into his duffle. Sam's skin is warm. He moves. He moves too much, and he's too close, and his smell fills the room, tempting Dean with every kind of unreasonableness.

Sometimes when they shut the door between them and the world, when they hunker down in an anonymous room, it feels like everything outside their enclosure falls away. And sometimes it is too much. Like right now, Dean thought. Right now, it's too much. One of them was going to have to step away. If Dean could just get an hour to clear his head…but it felt like a betrayal. He wanted every minute. Every one. As much as he wanted a minute alone, he was unwilling to let Sam out of his sight.

He moved across the room and tapped Sam's foot with the toe of his boot, "You want to eat?"

"Yeah."

Sam's expression was a mystery, some mix of emotion Dean couldn't place. "Bar or diner, or what, baby boy?" Dean winced slightly when the words slipped out, but the epithet jolted Sam; his eyes were suddenly so wide Dean felt he could see his own reflection in them, just for a second. There was no answer, just that same baffling look. Dean reached out and took the camera from Sam's hands, almost surprised when Sam let him.

"You push the arrow button to look."

"I know how to work a camera, Sam." Dean scrolled through image after image. Most of the photos were of him, and Dean was unsurprised and a little annoyed to see a few of him sleeping. "None of these are of you, Sammy."

"Kind of hard to be in the picture when you're taking it."

Dean turned the camera to Sam and clicked. In the dim hotel room the flash blinded both of them momentarily. He and Sam were both left blinking against the sudden light. Dean wondered how many pictures Sam existed in the world? How many of them together? It was an old sorrow Dean felt realizing that there was no one outside of them anymore except for Bobby, and Bobby wasn't exactly the picture type. There were only a handful of pictures of them from before the fire. A few of them each alone, and one of Sam in Dean's arms as a newborn. There are no more than six others in a faded white envelope in the back of the journal. Dean had one picture he carried with him from childhood, the one the new tenant found in the basement of their old house, just them and Dad sitting on the trunk of the Impala. Neither Sam or Dean can remember who took it. Dean suspects it was Caleb, but his memory is fuzzy. It could have been a babysitter, or a "client." There's nothing after that; no a high-school graduation photo for either boy, no family photos from Sears...nothing. Who would have taken them anyway?

"Hey," Dean tried to shake off the haze of nostalgia and sorrow by forcing his voice cheerful, nonchalant, "c'mere." He tugged Sam's shirt sleeve and maneuvered him over to the bed before walking over to the TV and staring uselessly at the camera's buttons. Why were there so fucking many? "How's the timer work?" he asked, moving back over to Sam.

"I thought you 'knew how to work a camera.'" Sam chuckled, but only to hide his nervousness. He clicked a few buttons and handed it back, to Dean, "just push the button."

Dean propped the camera on the table, aimed the lens toward the bed, pushed the button, rushed to Sam's side and then figured out quickly that he should have thought this through a little more. Should he smile? Should they sit closer? Should they pose? Dean's brain was running overtime, and the orange light kept blinking. Dean didn't smile. He just concentrated on trying not to look like a deer in headlights. After 30 of the most brutally awkward seconds of his life, he turned to looked at Sam. "I thought _you_knew how a camera worked."

"Let's just get some food." Sam sounded disappointed, and that disappointment was echoed in Dean, despite the awkwardness of the situation. "We can try again later. I'll look at the instructions again."

By 11 pm Sam was drunk, and not just drunk, but druuunk. The only open eatery nearby was the local bar, and Sam must have been drinking more than Dean realized, he was wobbling and touching and way too close for Dean's comfort. The second they entered the hotel room the camera was in his hand, and pointed at Dean, who was leaning with one hand against the doorframe, just trying to get his boots unlaced without falling on his face. He wasn't drunk, but he'd had just enough to take the edge off of everything. Even the air felt slippery and warm. But Sam was blasted, and suddenly right in Dean's face, squishing his cheek against Dean's. He had the camera held high above them, aimed at their faces.

"Tell me a secret." Sam wobbled on his feet as he stepped away from Dean-his long limbs betraying just how drunk he was as he moved in the space between the beds. He pointed the camera, unsteadily towards Dean again.

"Why?" Dean put his hands up, blocking his face from the flash.

"I need one."

"You what?"

"I'll keep them." Sam's voice was edging towards whiny.

"You'll what?"

"Please. Tell me something I don't know."

Dean understood. "Fine, a secret." As he moved to sit on the bed, looking towards Sam and his stupid camera, Dean rummaged through his mind for anything Sam might not already know. "When you were ten you had this pair of shoes. They weren't anything special, they weren't like, I dunno, Jordan's or anything."

Sam leaned over to flick on the lamp still trying to hold the lens steady on Dean. Dean waited for his eyes to adjust.

"You were all proud of them." Sam had been. The pair of shoes might have been the first he had of his own. They weren't from the thrift store. They weren't hand-me-downs. They were real shoes, with a real Nike swoosh on the side. "And some kid beat you up, stole them. You came home barefoot with your socks stuffed in your pockets." Dean laughed just a little. "Fuck if you weren't pitiful."

"I remember that, maybe." Sam said, still holding the camera up. "I don't know. I mean, there were lots of fights. That's not a secret."

"No," Dean was trying to suppress the laughter threatening to burst out; it was an odd feeling, one unfamiliar after so long. "The secret is how I got them back."

"How?"

"I pulled a gun on the kid." Dean laughed, and flopped back on the bed, holding his sides and laughing at the ceiling.

"Dean!"

"He pissed his pants. Probably pissed your shoes too. Fuck."

Sam was laughing too at that point. Dean propped himself on his elbows. The camera was still in front of his face.

"Are you recording this?" Dean asked raising his eyebrows, although it hardly mattered, he thought.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm recording it." Sam's face was expectant, like he thought Dean might bitch, or object. At one point he might have, but why would he object now? There was nothing to lose.

Sam's smile was sad when he begged, "Tell me another?"

"Sam, what are you doing?" Dean understood. He understood, but he had to ask.

"I'm researching. I'm cataloging. I'm failing." The smile had disappeared, but he knew Sam was still recording. "I need to know. Please."

Dean tried to diffuse the emotional escalation in Sam's voice with a well-timed, "You're drunk."

When Sam's face wrenched up in a sob, Dean knew it was too late. "You're dying."

Dean sat up, leaned forward and shook his head. "Sam, Stop!" He watched as Sam dried his eyes on his shirt sleeves. Listened to him snuffle a few times before trying to compose himself. "Turn off the camera."

Sam shook his head, "No. You'll be gone and I want to know everything. Tell me everything."

"I don't…" And it was true. Dean didn't. Whatever it was, Dean really "didn't." Didn't know what to do, how to act, what to say, what was right, or too far, or just another bad idea.

Sam coughed to clear his throat and asked the last thing Dean expected. "Do you like the cello?"

The laughter felt like it came from nowhere and everywhere at once. "You're fucking crazy," Dean said, sputtering between laughs that shook his ribs hard enough to hurt. To be honest, everything felt fucking crazy, and nothing felt real. The lamp was too bright. His laugh was too loud. Sam's booze-fueled sorrow was too evident. The subtlety of the day to day had gone straight out the window. It was like a bad movie, everything just a little too obvious, a little too "in your face." A little too tragic and Technicolor like _The Wizard of Oz_, but here they were plopped down in the middle of it without a script, and no direction to speak of. He rolled his eyes at nothing. He was tired. He was drunk. "Sam, for real," he chuckled. "Camera off, dude." Sam wobbled and swayed crossing the room to put the camera on the table. "You're falling asleep standing up, buddy. Get to bed."

Sam just nodded and headed into the bathroom, without any complaining…like a good little soldier.

Dean had been tossing and turning in the bed for hours trying to find some sleep, but his brain wouldn't let him. Sam wasn't doing any better. When he heard Sam get up, he expected him to walk over to the bathroom, but Sam didn't move. The floor didn't creak. He took no steps at all. Dean turned his head and saw Sam standing there a dark shape in a dark room. "Sam, you okay?" Dean's voice was as sleep-worn, whiskey-raw as the rest of him felt.

"No."

"Sam?"

As if in answer, Sam's shape moved closer; he nudged Dean's upper arm with the back of his hand in a gesture that clearly meant, "move over."

"Sam, what are you?" Dean leaned up on his elbow to object and Sam slipped beside him, remarkably graceful in the dark. The rickety bed-frame barely shook as he scooted close, splaying his hand across Dean's chest and pushing him back. Dean felt the warmth of Sam stretching out beside him through his threadbare grey shirt and even through the scratchy hotel sheet that tangled around their legs. He wanted to pull that warmth to him, to find some comfort there, but he couldn't. Once he might have, hell, before this fucked up thing started, Dean would have called it innocent, and might have just moved without qualms, but now there was a darker draw to the simple act of sharing a bed.

"Sam?" Dean tried to fill his voice with chastisement, anything to dissuade Sam further.

"Shh." Sam laid his head on Dean's shoulder.

Dean wrapped his hand around Sam's wrist and lifted it away, "Sam, no."

"I'm not…" The sob, that little tremor, was back in his voice. He sounded so young, so afraid.

"Sam, no." Dean pulled his shoulder away, but Sam followed his movements.

"Just let me lay here? Please? I can't be over there. It's too far right now."

Dean made an annoyed noise, halfway between a humph and resignation. Just this would be fine, Dean supposed. No line crossed here, but then Sam shifted, clung to Dean, straddled him like a child, and the tears fell hot and bright against Dean's neck in a way that made him dizzy. Sam made no sound, but the silent shaking of his body did not cease.

Dean couldn't bear to push him away, so he patted his back, like he had when he was younger. Then he smoothed his hands down it over and over. "Sam? Are you a koala? Are we koalas now?"

Sam said nothing, so Dean's hand came up to his face, smoothed his hair. "Shhh." He repeated it again and again as Sam trembled. "Shhh, baby, shhh. Sammy, listen. It's okay. It's okay. You gotta believe me."

Dean pressed a kiss to Sam's brow, one to his temple. "Shhh. Shhh." He knew he was edging closer to that no-no line, but Sam's sorrow was filling the room, and maybe Sam was right, maybe "over there" was too far? Maybe time and space were somehow shrinking…the days ticked by and another inch of once-necessary space became unbearable distance.

Dean's voice waivered, "What can I do, Sam? What do you need?"

The answer was soft, and frantic, and endless, "Stay with me. Stay with me. Stay with me. Stay with me. Stay with me. Stay with me. Stay with me. Stay with me. Stay with me. Stay with me. Stay with me. Stay with me. Stay with me. Stay with me. Stay with me. Stay with me."

Sam rolled his forehead along Dean's collarbone, rubbed his cheek on his shoulder. And Dean could feel Sam's chest move as he spoke. "Stay with me. Stay with me." Dean could feel Sam's ankles pressing lightly just on the outside of each of his knees. "Stay with me." Dean felt the heat and weight of his brother, and he was wrong. It was entirely innocent, and entirely tragic. Still Sam kept repeating, "Stay with me. Stay with me. Stay with me." It was a cross between prayer and demand.

The sorrow filling the room seemed to sink into Dean with each repetition. He was choking on it, smothering in it. He just, he just…Dean maneuvered his arm around Sam's back and deftly flipped him over so that he was propped above Sam on his left elbow. The room was dark, but enough light from the lot diffused through the cheap curtains to see Sam's eyes blurry with tears, his hair fanned out over the pillow, the bottom left of his lip caught between his teeth; so tragic and damaged looking that Dean wanted to cry himself. Instead he leaned down.

This was a kiss. Stone still. Lips touching. Breathing. Dean's hand in Sam's hair. His thumb resting gently against Sam's temple. Like Sam had said, "over there was too far," and maybe this was an awful mistake, but _over there was too far_. His own skin was too far and all the barriers between them were an annoyance. He would have shucked it all, just to be closer, just to be still for a moment. Still for just one moment; because maybe time couldn't stop, but they could will it to slow down. They could stay like this, Dean thought. _He_ could stay, just like this. The tears welled in his eyes and in trying to blink them back he felt them fall. Sam inhaled, his chest rising quickly in surprise. Of course he felt them. Of course. "And who cares?" Dean thought.

The kiss broke as suddenly as it began. Dean rolled back down onto his back beside Sam and stared at the ceiling. Tears ran over his cheekbones and pooled in the curve of his ears. He sniffed once and rubbed his eyes gruffly with the back of his hand.

Sam was silent for minutes; so silent that Dean thought he had fallen asleep when he finally spoke. "Why?"

"Why not?" Dean said, "It's too far over there, right?"

"No, Dean." Sam's voice was a whisper, "Why?"

Dean breathed deep, and shifted his shoulder blades back until they made a satisfying pop, "I don't know, Sam. Just like I said, or you said, or whatever… it was too far over there…I don't, I mean, maybe things aren't so simple? Or maybe they're more simple? Or maybe the universe is collapsing? Or, fuck, I don't know." Dean held his right thumb against his lip. He could still feel the faint memory of the kiss, like it was tattooed in his skin. "It's okay. We're okay."

"Yeah?" Sam's voice was hesitant.

"Yeah, yeah, just…go to sleep, okay? We have to get to Bobby's, we have to figure something out." It might be hopeless, he thought, but they'd at least fight. He stretched his right hand down and found Sam's, laced their fingers together and squeezed them lightly. "Go to sleep, Sammy. I'm right here. Don't let go."

* * *

><p>Barthes, Roland. <em>Camera Lucida<em>. Trans. Richard Hower. 2nd Ed. New York: Hill and Wang, .


	6. Chapter 6

Title: Polaris  
>Author: James Parker Lombard<br>Rating M: Language, Wincest-ish? (Dean/Sam)  
>SpoilersSet: Season 3 Ep.16 "No Rest for the Wicked" to Season 4 Ep. 1 "Lazarus Rising"  
>Characters: Dean and Sam Winchester (Chapter Six; Sam POV)<br>Word Count: 5,282  
>Summary: It was a Tuesday or a Wednesday when Sam realized that Colt or not, they could never win this. It wasn't a vision, it wasn't a premonition at all, it was a cold hard fact that had him throwing up in the metal trashcan by the door, because he couldn't even reach the bathroom in time.<p>

For TwinchesterAngel and Paperstorm with love, and regrets…I am slow and this is painful, give me time.

* * *

><p>"The photograph is literally an emanation of the referent. From a real body, which was there, proceed radiations which ultimately touch me, who am here; the duration of the transmission is insignificant; the photograph of the missing being, as Sontag says, will touch me like the delayed rays of a star." ― Roland Barthes, <em>Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography<em>

* * *

><p>Sam took pictures. Pictures of Dean angry, morose, defiant, tender, unaware. Pictures of him sleeping with an elbow crooked beneath his pillow, unseen hand wrapped lazily around the molded pistol grip of his Taurus. Pictures of him pumping gas with the setting sun turning his dirty-blonde hair almost strawberry. Pictures of him illuminated by dim desk lamps and the soft motes of dust that inevitably, and endlessly, rose from the cheap, dust-heavy curtains of cut-rate rooms. Pictures of him bending over the green felt of pool tables. Pictures of him more than halfway into a 12 pack of beer. Pictures of him in the distance framed by soft blue fluorescence. Pictures of him close enough to see the gold tips of lashes against his freckle-dusted cheeks. Sam filled up gigs of memory, and the word "memory" was not lost on him. Every time the lens snapped, he was aware that the moments he was capturing were moments that had past, moments he could never get back again…so, he kept clicking.<p>

When those SD cards were full Sam bought other cards: filled them up, deleted nothing. He kept every bad, blurry, photo of Dean in motion. All of them photos of Dean's last days. Sam flipped through them in the car or the room, whenever they had some down time…aware always of Dean's proximity—the scant inches of space between their thighs on the familiar leather seat, the unbreachable feet between their bodies. Those walls were figurative and metaphorical, but still so very real; they had them built out of, maybe even because of, love. Suddenly, Sam knew he'd never be able to look at the photos after Dean was gone. Every frame would be a knife in his heart.

While Sam was at Stanford he kept a picture of the two of them taped to the wall near the bunk in his dorm. It was a faded photo, and Dean was far from central in the picture…he was a shadow really, an accidental catch. The photo was of Sam during his senior year, standing next to a group of haphazard friends he had made in the six months before his graduation. He didn't remember who took the photo, hell to be honest he didn't even remember all of their names; only that one of them, whoever it was, made him a copy, left it in his locker, and he had recognized the shape in the distance without even trying: Dean's slouch, the silhouette of Dean's jacket, Dean's "I'm not paying attention to you" stance which really meant "I have every sense tuned, but you don't need to know that."

That photo was a saintly relic on the altar of Sam's past. He poured his faith into it. He ran the pads of his fingers over it so often he was surprised it wasn't worn through with adoration, because that's what it felt like…adoration. Every night he'd say his salt blessing to a photo of his beloved, the only thing from his old life that mattered or carried any weight. The only thing he regretted. And those regrets haunted him, no matter what Dean thought now. Back then Sam prayed to God every night, adding a simple request that he'd never get that callous, expected phone call from his father stating clinically and definitively that Dean was gone.

And here Sam was, no father to call, no one to mitigate the distance between them and inevitable tragedy. Dean was so very nearly gone. The old fears Sam felt some nights in the dorm alone, with nothing to keep the dark thoughts at bay, were now made miniscule relative to the certainty of Dean's deal.

Back then, Sam wept as quietly as he could alone in his narrow dorm bunk some nights, brain working overtime under its own volition—inventing new ways Dean might die, new ways for Sam to be alone in the world. Some nights Sam laced his boots, and nearly ran out the door with his heart in the vice-grips of unknowable panic. In his desperation he'd sometimes make it as far as the well-lit parking lot before he turned around and headed back inside.

When he moved in with Jess, it was Jess who moved the thumb-tacked picture into a dollar store frame. It sat on a thrift-store dresser beside his alarm clock. Every night Sam ran a finger down the glass now protecting Dean's shadowed image. Then he said the prayer in his head before setting the alarm and settling down into the bed he and Jessica shared. He still felt a stab of pain when he thought of her; he always would. Jess was gone. That photo was gone—burned up in the fire that took Jess. The fire that would have killed him as well were Dean not Dean, were he not always on guard, were he not there to pull Sam literally and bodily out of the fire, and back into the frying pan of their fucked up lives.

Sam felt lost after Jess's death: not just lost, but guilt-ridden, defeated. He had loved Jess, really loved her, but this, Dean's impending doom, was different. Jess was Jess; he had loved her for her sweetness, her weird, and unexpected, emotional strength, her hopefulness…there were a million reasons and moments to love Jess. But Jess was not Dean. And Jess's death, despite its heaps of still-resounding guilt and sorrow, was not this slow drag of despair that would undoubtedly destroy him. She flitted out, her death hitting heavy and hard was no small thing, but it was thankfully sudden. Dean's death was slow motion. Sam felt like both he and Dean were dying by degrees, because how could one death not necessitate the other?

At moments he could forget, and minutes would pass without the crush of inexorable, ineffable sorrow, but then reality would slam him in the chest full force out of nowhere. That hopelessness left him reeling. It felt like drowning. The panic hit his lungs and he couldn't breathe. It made him desperate and reckless, made him want to throw himself at Dean, cling to him like a last hope, as if Sam himself were the dying man, and Dean was, as always, the anchor holding him to the world.

Other times it made him angry, as angry and desperate as he was in the fictitious half-year the trickster constructed to give him a taste of a world without Dean. The desperation was too much, too heavy, too fast, too hard, too real. His body went into fight or flight mode…grasping at any shred of hope, no matter how thin, or stupid, that would delay Dean's deal. Mistakes were made. He knew this thing with Benson, and Bela, and even Ruby to some extent, was the equivalent of throwing himself out of random windows and hoping for the gift of flight…but the chance that something, anything, would work kept him repeating the same errors…window after window. It didn't matter how hard he hit, or how frequently he shattered. All that mattered was the slim chance.

He kept dreaming of Dean's shredded body in his arms. Of unseen jaws pulling him further away from the bed they once shared, if only in Sam's dream, in the Blue Moon motel. The kisses his dream-Dean pressed to Sam's lips now tasted of blood and ashes. He'd woken mid-scream more than once. The rough, hotel sheets wrapped around his legs as he thrashed against the imagined terrors taking his beloved away. He'd stare across the darkness and reassure himself of his brother's presence, but it didn't feel like enough. It never felt like enough.

Dean went to get the gun from Bela on a Tuesday or a Wednesday, and Sam was appalled that he couldn't remember the day of the week; all he could think about was time, and he still lost count. They parted with stupid words, amid another stupid fight because their stupid nerves were raw and frayed and too close to the surface. It was a Tuesday or a Wednesday when Sam realized, Colt or not, they could never win this. It wasn't a vision, it wasn't a premonition at all; it was a cold hard fact that had him throwing up in the metal trashcan by the door because he couldn't even reach the bathroom in time.

Of course, it had all gone wrong again, like it did whenever Dean wasn't around. Sam would be dead, or at least blind if Dean hadn't showed up, as usual, in the nick of time like a fucking hero, which was what he was, when it was all boiled down. He was the goddamn white knight to Sam's constant distress…no fucking joke, no matter how often Dean himself tried to make it one. Maybe that was good news? Sam wouldn't last a month without Dean saving him, over and over again. No. Something had to change, Sam wouldn't let Dean die for nothing. Even if, and Sam balked at the thought, Dean didn't survive this, there was certainly some back door into the underworld. There had to be something Sam could do, no matter how Herculean, to get Dean back where he belonged—with Sam. And if there was something that could be done, then Sam would do it or die trying.

Sam thought back to their first encounter with Meg, when Dean threatened to march into hell on their father's behalf. If Sam had to, he would do just that, exactly as Dean had once promised. He would march into hell slaughtering demons without mercy. Anything for Dean. Anything. But Sam felt useless. Weaponless. They hadn't found the Colt. Bela was dead, the victim of her own deal. The days were closing in on them.

Sam found himself drifting between sleep and wakefulness when panic hit him hard enough to lift him to his feet. His heart drummed against his rib-cage so hard he could feel it through bones and muscle, like a trapped thing. He was still 2/3rds drunk on dollar beer from a bar-slash-diner in Joliet. They had eaten in half-silence and forced levity, and Sam had sucked down bottle after bottle with his bland bar food just to have something to do with his hands.

When he was drunk the guard came down. Their conversation back at the room turned from photos to secrets to disaster so fast that Sam hardly registered what either of them had said before the flood of tears came. Then Dean's laughter saved him again. That laughter was the soundtrack to nearly every joyful moment in his life. It rattled his ribs in the small room, and left him breathless. His hands were shaking as he crossed the room and set the camera down. He could feel the first tremors of a panic attack; he walked quickly to the bathroom before he did something else to embarrass himself.

Unfortunately, what he shoved down in the daylight always seemed to surface in Sam's dreams. That was the reason for the field, and the things Dean had accidentally witnessed passing through it. Even that had changed; there was no longer respite at the end, even if he made it through all the latent self-recrimination in his subconscious. Sam didn't want to sleep. He sometimes felt he would be happiest never sleeping again. Not that the days were any better.

Roused by this new wave of panic, Sam stood in the dark of the room with his guts churning, ready to wander into the bathroom to empty the last of the beer as quietly as he could. Instead, he froze in the dark, uncomfortable gap between the beds. Dean was there, warm, alive…not the cold wreck invading Sam's mind in rip-flashes of pain. Dean was there.

When they were just kids, alone on their own, years before they should have been, and hunkered down in the same shitty no-tells they still called home, Sam had the same childish nightmares and fears as any other child. With no mother he could remember, and no father in sight for days, and sometimes weeks, at a time, Sam would slip into Dean's bed, and worm his way into the circle of Dean's arms where all fears would dissipate.

Like magic, Dean's voice reached out in the dark, "Sam, you okay?"

Sam didn't know how he expected Dean to respond to the silent request to share a bed again, especially with all the crap had happened between them. Sam knew if he tried to speak that it would open every floodgate, and that he would be washed away in sorrow. He hadn't expected any of what Dean did.

When Dean's hand came up to his face and smoothed his hair, Sam leaned into it, starved for touch.

When Dean spoke, voice sleep-thick and gravelly with concern, the words slid over Sam like they had all those years ago, "Sammy, listen. It's okay. It's okay. You gotta believe me."

It was a spell repeated again and again, "Shhh, baby, shhh," as Sam trembled. A kiss to his brow. One to his temple. "Shhh. Shhh." It was not comfort, but pain that swallowed Sam in that moment.

Dean's voice reverberated, echoed, felt as if it were etching his bones with even more of that deep, unnamable, slippery pain, "What can I do, Sam? What do you need?"

Sam opened his mouth and the same three words poured forth over and over again. "Stay with me. Stay with me. Stay with me. Stay with me. Stay with me. Stay with me." Sam couldn't stop it. Couldn't breathe without it. He rolled his forehead along Dean's collarbone, rubbed his cheek over the round strength of his shoulder. "Stay with me. Stay with me. Stay with me. Stay with me."

Without hesitation Dean flipped them over so that he was propped above Sam on one arm. And Sam found he wasn't brave enough to look Dean in the eye, so the kiss took him by surprise.

Sam thought his heart would burst. He was terrified. Not hungry, not desperate. How many ways had he imagined this? And never once had had thought he could feel so much from something so little. This had never been a choice, this weird, sick love. This.

He awoke the next morning, having dreamt of nothing at all, and with his fingers still entwined with Dean's. He shut his eyes and waited silently for the other shoe to drop, for Dean to wake up and jerk his hand away, for Dean to shrug off the night before. Sam wondered if he should move. Obviously I should, he thought. Obviously. But he couldn't bring himself to do it.

When Dean woke, nothing went as Sam expected. He squeezed Sam's hand and turned to smile at him before rising. They packed up quickly, efficient as always, and hit the road just as the sun burnt away the thin fog that had gathered in the fields. The road stretched before them, the radio hummed low and everyone was in their place.

Bobby called around 10 am, just as they were fueling up. Dean took the call even though there were handwritten signs, taped and yellowed, reading "No Cell Phones at Pump." The clerk in the store tapped the window with an angry finger and earned himself a sneer and an eye roll from Dean. The day felt normal after the meltdown of the night before, and as a result Sam had managed to keep his breakfast down for the first time in a week. Until Dean hung up and said two little words, "Nothing yet."

When the panic hit, it hit. Hard and fast out of nowhere. Sam sputtered his meager breakfast and a stomach-full of acidy coffee into a gas station toilet that hadn't seen the scrub-end of a brush in years. He rubbed at his tears with a wad of cheap, brown paper towels and leaned against the greasy wall until his breathing and heartbeat felt normal again, and then splashed his face with cold water from a rusty tap to calm his puffy eyes.

When he finally opened the door with a sigh, he jumped back in surprise. Dean was leaning awkwardly against the dinged doorframe, and frowned before he pulled Sam into an equally awkward hug.

"Listen," Dean breathed into Sam's neck, "You have to stop this now." Dean grabbed a fist-full of Sam's hair at the base of his neck and maneuvered his head until they were eye to eye, almost nose to nose really. Sam's heart thumped heavy with memories of the night before, and he tried to look away but found no purchase.

"I need you well. I need you strong. You feel me?"

Sam nodded.

He felt: the warmth of Dean's wrist on the back of his neck, the slow squeezing pull of the grip on his scalp, the release, the brotherly pat on the shoulder.

"Good boy. Get in the car. Miles to go then."

He felt like an ashamed twelve year old as he walked to the car three paces behind his older brother; he wanted to reach forward with his too-long arms and grab Dean's shirt tail, to let himself be led for once, without resistance. At the car they parted ways, to their customary sides, and Dean leaned into the frame with his elbows, his face serious.

"Sam, it's still okay. I said it last night, and I meant it. I'm telling you now. I'll keep telling you every minute if I have to. So, believe me. It's okay. It's okay." He punctuated the sentence with a smile that made Sam's hands shake.

The door squeaked as Sam slid into the passenger's seat, running his hands forcefully down the front of his jean-clad thighs to remove the clammy sweat of them. He didn't know what to say. There were still hours before Bobby's house and Sam didn't know what to say. If he opened his mouth he wasn't sure what would fall out of it. Screams? Cries? Desperate babbling?

The Impala roared to life, vibrating the soles of his feet against the floorboards in a familiar and comforting frequency. Dean spoke as he shifted the car into first, "You know, Bobby has nothing yet. It's…we can take our time getting there."

"But we could help him."

"I know, Sam, we're headed there, no worries. It's just…" the sun was rising behind them and Dean squinted in the light from the rear-view. There were lines around his eyes that Sam had not seen before. Dean looked tired.

"…you know...we can take our time."

"And do what?" Sam's voice felt thick with disuse in his throat.

"Do whatever. It's just we don't have to rush. It's an 8 hour drive. Let's do something."

"Like what?"

"Like I dunno, get a beer?"

"So, do what we always do?"

Dean laughed loudly, Sam couldn't help but stare. He wished he had his camera to capture it, so he reached back over the seat and grabbed his backpack.

"I guess I don't know what normal people do anymore." Dean was biting his lip softly, his smile bent around his teeth. Sam shuffled the contents of the bag quickly, locating the camera too late to capture the moment. Instead he snapped a wry, eyebrow raised faux-pout. And got a deserved, "Jesus, Sam, give the camera a rest, pal" and a chuckle for his efforts.

They were almost to Davenport, Iowa, two hours later, before they decided that they still had no idea what normal people did for fun. They could go to a park, or a movie, or out to eat, but those things felt weirdly like something a person did with a date, not a brother. Sam ruled out Dean's rather insistent vote for massage at the I-80 truck-stop, but they decided to head there anyway. They ate unmemorable food at an unmemorable table they may have sat at before during their frequent stops to the roadside Mecca over the years.

Amid infrequent bites of the daily special and sides of fries the conversation turned to a list of nearby places to see: The Dells, the world's largest concrete gnome, the two-butted lamb…all of them nixed out of hand, although there was some discussion over the world's largest Chee-to, during which Dean designed what he called a "foolproof" scheme to eat as much of it as possible by breaking in after hours. Sadly, when Sam looked up directions on Roadside America, they discovered that the world's largest Chee-to was only the size of a golf ball.

Dean's only response was, "That's fucking lame, dude. False advertising."

Sam kicked at the gravel in the lot with the toe of his shoe as they walked back to the car. It was 2:30 already, another 6 hours to Bobby's from here—probably less the way Dean drives. Sam figured it would be back roads from here on out, avoiding the highways and flying low along two lanes, slowing only for the obvious speed-traps of small towns on the way. Sam had a sudden urge to pirouette on his heels and run the opposite way. This dread hanging over them, mixed up as it was with love and a new weirdness, would be a much heavier burden beneath Bobby's watchful gaze as the days and hours counted down.

"Sam?" Dean was looking over his half-turned shoulder squinting in the sun.

"Yeah?"

"Let's just find a place. We'll get to Bobby's tomorrow."

"But?"

"Sam, we'll get to Bobby's tomorrow." Dean's voice carried a forced cheerfulness that few would notice. But Sam did. That forced cheerfulness spoke volumes. It meant uncertainty and smothered sorrow.

"Whatever you want Dean."

"That's the spirit. Whatever I want. I can live with that."

Sam's stomach roiled. Now words were setting off the panic. "Live" was echoing in his brain, an impossible plea. Live. Live.

"Let's just do what we do, okay?"

The car door opened with its usual heavy groan and Dean leaned across the bench seat to pop the lock on Sam's side, looking up at him with a smile.

"What do we do Dean?"

"Get a room. Get a drink. Just be."

"Just be what?" Sam questioned sliding into his spot.

"Just be us, dude."

A silly, empty statement. _Who else could they be?_ Sam thought, as if there were a choice. Who would he choose to be? The heartbreak of their lives, turning always from tragedy to tragedy before finally hitting this inescapable finale, had shaped them wholly. It had bound them wholly to one another. It allowed their lives to be punctuated by a few sweet, clear memories others took for granted.

Sam thought of the nights before he left for Stanford when Dean and John would arrive "home" battered and torn, streaked with grave dirt and fresh ashes. John would growl out a few orders then pass out in his clothes across the stale coverlet. Dean, smelling of gunpowder and lighter fluid, would pull Sam into the night air and they'd sit, sharing whatever cheap beer they could muster, and stare at the night sky as Dean recounted his and his father's heroics.

Sam resisting, every time, the need to clamp his hand around Dean's wrist just to prove he was back and whole, not some desperate mirage. Sam would sit and listen, gulping audibly when the calls were close, and reciting silent prayers of thanks for whatever force, luck or god, had returned Dean to him again.

Sam leaned his shoulder against the car door and watched the flat of Iowa roll on by. He thought of stars and distance, broad and infinitesimal. He thought of physics and the fact that no one ever really sees things as they actually are because of the way light works. What we see is always a fraction of a second behind what is. Dean is always in the past.

The snap of the camera lens could capture the _now_ in some ways—that brief, still moment before everything starts moving again, before the inevitable change, but that was just light, just particles and waves. Everything changed. Sam was used to dealing with change…new beds, new roads, new people, new tragedies. Life was change, after all, but this change would kill Sam. He could not live in a world without his brother. He knew it like he knew he would never amend a single thing in their lives save one.

He rolled his forehead against the glass, leaving, he knew, an oily smudge that Dean would bitch about. The one thing he'd change was the deal. He'd been dead for how long? He didn't even know for sure: long enough for his body to cool, long enough for Dean to make the ultimate mistake. He wouldn't trade another instant of his shitty life, save for that. If he had the ability to reverse things, he'd be dead under the earth, and Dean would go on. He had to find a way to stop this.

They found their way amid awkward silences and loud classic rock stations to the Janco Motor Inn in Grand Junction. A place which, despite its dismal exterior and questionable name, was not only clean, but within walking distance of the kinds of typical crossroads bars they frequented: giant eagle and flag mural on the outside of an aluminum shelled building, mud-spattered pickups lined up in an uneven dirt lot, and not a window in sight. The Impala stuck out like a shiny thumb in front of their door, and earned a few onlookers. Old men who wanted to talk horsepower and muscle, and who invited them over to the nameless bar for a drink, after a good half hour of good-natured admiration that Dean ate up, as always, with a proud smile.

An hour later, after a shave and a shower for each of them, Dean was charming his way into the hearts of a group of vets. Regaling them with tales of their military upbringing and the few stories his father shared from his tour in Vietnam. There were rounds of drinks: beer and cheap shots. Dean bought a pack of GPCs from perhaps the last cigarette machine left in America, and all Sam could think about was the taste of Dean's lips on that night in February, and the soul-shattering kiss of the night before. His hands shook as he signaled the wiry bartender for another beer. He knew he was staring, trying to burn Dean into his retinas. The rest of the bar went wobbly with only Dean in focus. Only him laughing and joshing and telling tales about cross-country trips and kid brothers. Only him acknowledging Sam with a lift of the shoulder, a turn of the head, a half-smile with a hint of teeth. The bottle sweated in Sam's hand. He downed it in three pulls and ordered another.

There were rounds of pool, thwarted requests by middle-aged local divorcees on the prowl, and a narrow escape when someone wheeled out the karaoke machine just before 11. By the time they took their leave of the place, fearing the sad country anthems the karaoke crowd would certainly select, Sam felt good and drunk. The night air felt like release, his shoulders slumped as he inhaled the cool evening air, and he flinched when Dean's palm pressed against the center of his back, guiding him towards the motel.

"Should we get a six pack to go?"

"Nah," Sam answered, "I'm beered out. You have a flask, we can get some cokes out of the machine if you want."

"Not a bad plan, kid."

The gravel rolled under Sam's work boots, and Dean lit another cigarette as they passed under the flickering light illuminating the crossroad. There was a flutter in Sam's chest. Where had Dean made his deal? Any crossroads would do, but where did he bury the offerings, where did he kiss away his future? Sam licked his lip and bit at a chapped bit of skin until it hurt. Sometimes he felt like a bit of a masochist for the way pain popped him out of his head and back into the reality of the moment. The moment didn't last for long, though. It never did.

He hadn't felt a thing when he'd been shot. His last memory was seeing Dean standing at the far end of the dusty main street of Cold Oak, and feeling a sudden surge of relief that almost moved him to tears. Then, nothing.

There was a hint of a scar at first. There was certainly a little tenderness and some stiffness. In the days that followed his skin had healed completely, all damage undone, except for that damage that could not be reversed. Dean had given him his life back, but what kind of life would it be? Cold. Desolate.

Dean walked three steps ahead of him and Sam stared, pained, at the line of Dean's back in the brown leather coat their father once wore. Dean was what their father couldn't be: tender and kind, noble, a hero. Driven? Yes, but not by the same things their father had been driven by, not by vengeance. Unlike Sam and their father, Dean never lost sight of things.

Dean smiled over his shoulder. His quick grin startling, as he unlocked the door.

The room felt too quiet, too heavy, but that was to be expected perhaps. He reached down and popped the on switch on the battered TV that hummed to life, and kept humming in a low persistent drone.

"Turn it off."

Sam looked over his shoulder at Dean's face, illuminated only by the blue light from the TV guide channel. Dean's face, sad and serious, with a little worried smile—sure coverage of some underlying issue. Sam's heart sank in his chest, and despite the beers, the quickly slugged shots of cheap whisky, and the dazed wobbling of his brain just moments before, he felt suddenly sober…and afraid. He reached down and pressed the on/off button.

The darkness was immediate and almost total. A dim ray of yellowy light illuminated the edge of the curtain, and he could hear Dean moving. The soft sounds of his jacket being removed and then the heavy thwack of it as it landed on the bed.

Dean's voice shattered the near-silence of the room, "So, then, how does this start Sam?"

* * *

><p>Barthes, Roland. <em>Camera Lucida<em>. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1981.


	7. Chapter 7

Title: Polaris  
>Author: James Parker Lombard<br>Rating M: Language, Wincest-ish? (Dean/Sam)  
>SpoilersSet: Season 3 Ep.16 "No Rest for the Wicked" to Season 4 Ep. 1 "Lazarus Rising"  
>Characters: Dean and Sam Winchester (Chapter Seven; Dean POV)<br>Word Count: 4,645  
>Summary: Dean dropped his hand and flexed his fingers at his sides, grasping nothing. Sam stood mere feet away; he could see the mass of him, dark in a sea of dark…if a shit hotel room could be a sea of anything. Death was making him romantic or something, fucking up his filter.<p>

For TwinchesterAngel and Paperstorm with love—I didn't forget. One more to go, girls.

**Polaris**

* * *

><p>"Son, brother, father, lover, friend. There is room in the heart for all the affections, as there is room in heaven for all the stars."-Victor Hugo, from <em>Postscript of my Life<em>.

* * *

><p>Dean tried to sound confident, in-control, though his heart was pounding so loudly in the dark room that Sam had to have heard it. His hands were shaking like a fucking twelve year old girl at her first spin the bottle when he built up enough courage to say six simple words.<p>

"So, how does this start Sam?"

There's a catch in Sam's voice, "What are you talking about?"

"This. How does this start?"

He hears Sam shuffling away from him in the dark. "It doesn't. Don't do this to me. Don't do this_ for_ me. You…"

A strange sort of laughter started to bubble in his chest. Sam refusing him without even knowing the offer? Too fucking funny. Too fucking tragic. As if _this_ would be _for _Sam?

"Relax, pigtails, I just want to talk." Is that what he wanted, really? Who fucking knew anymore? Not Dean. It wasn't what he had intended when he walked through the door. He wasn't sure what he had intended? To throw Sam down and lick his way into his mouth? Ridiculous. To peel the shirt, smelling of bar and car, from his back, to peel Sam's away as well, and feel skin against skin? The thought was as disturbing as it was enticing. He felt skin hunger, some sort of molasses-sweet desire to smooth his tongue against someone else's skin…well, not someone…one-one's. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. All this syrupy ache was wrong, fucking wrong-wrong. And directed towards the person it should least be directed towards. Who knew? He wasn't sure what had his head screwed up, and what he wanted from Sam at all. Comfort? No. There was enough comfort of a sort in the deal he had made—his life for Sam's? Not an issue, not a problem. Eternal torment was a fucking bummer, but …anything for Sam.

"In the dark?" Sam's voice sounded suspicious; more than that, it sounded childish again, unsure. It sounded right on the verge of panic.

"If need be."

The night had been what? Routine? Yeah. And that had been exactly what Dean wanted: beers in a dive bar, a swirl of smoke around his head, no rushing headlong towards the inevitable. He could almost pretend the sky wasn't falling down, that flames weren't tickling his feet, that he wasn't being squeezed by forces he had willingly called down in fair trade.

A heartfelt conversation wasn't his forte, but the whisky and beer had steeled his spine, just as it softened every other thing.

Touch? Did he want touch? Yes. That was a yes, but not a wrong yes, just the solidity of Sam within arm's reach, exactly the way they had lain last night, fingers linked. Sam may have started it, but it was Dean who found he could not let go. He had lain still, listening to Sam's breathing in the otherwise stillness of their room in Joliet. In. Out. A steady rhythm synchronizing with his own breath. In. Out. How easy it would have been to turn and hold Sam closer. How easy to wrap his arms and press his mouth. No.

The surface of their skin felt like a heartbreaking barrier. Too much, too much. Dean wanted to peel it back, press their wet bodies together muscle to muscle, blood to blood, not knowing where one began, the other ended, clinging to the one good thing holding him here, the one good thing that kept him just this side of dying for so long, instead of jumping full-force over the breach. The insistence of the thought petrified him. He cried silently that night as Sam slept, holding tight to Sam's hand and stilling himself so as not to wake his brother from this rare, peace-filled sleep. All the while tears pooled in his ears, overflowed, slid onto the cheap hotel pillows and soaked them.

He still wasn't sure what had happened. The moment and those regrets associated with it ran a loop in his brain that he tried to analyze from all angles, but… His response to Sam's panic had been instantaneous, unfaltering. But, that's the way he did things, right? Sure: flying by the seat of his pants, dealing with the immediate. The immediate had been Sam, full-fucking breakdown, near hyperventilating until he broke this latest spell with another unfortunate kiss. Like a motherfucking prince charming again. Weird. The whole thing was weird. But, that was an understatement, they _lived_ in the weird 24/7…this was beyond that. Or was it?

Dean lifted his hand to his mouth, pressed the tips of his fingers against his lips and a quick jolt of love and pain ran a frisson through him. Someone walking on my grave, he thought, and almost laughed aloud. He would get no grave. He would burn to ash in an unmarked field like his father. And Sam, feeling obligated, would watch until the embers cooled. He knew. He would have saved Sam from that if he could, but things being what they were...

He dropped his hand and flexed his fingers at his sides, grasping nothing. Sam stood mere feet away; he could see the mass of him, dark in a sea of dark…if a shit hotel room could be a sea of anything. Death was making him romantic or something, fucking up his filter.

Three steps and he could be there—could grab hold of Sam's shoulders, could crush them together until they were one, one, one. Mine, he thought. Maybe that's what it was? A need to stake some final, irrefutable claim? He had bought Sam from the other side with flesh and blood and years shaved from a life that was already piss-poor to begin with, and the bill was due. That's all. His year of credit was up; his life was money in the bank for Lilith herself, if Bela was to be believed. He had bought Sam, paid. So, then, Sam was his. Sam was always his. Fuck the world if it didn't think so.

Although Dean had been young, and safe in a home with a mother and father, a safety that was cut short too soon, he remembered things. Quick snatches of moments: his ear to his mother's belly, his mouth "kissing the baby" who grew there, the impatience of want. When Sam was born they had lain him carefully in Dean's lap. Dean remembered his face: unformed, looking in a way like all babies looked. He remembered the baby smell of him and the pitter-pitter of his heart. _My brother_. My. The unfocused eyes seeing him.

When he ran from the burning house, Sam bundled in his arms, he had made Sam cry. He held too tightly in a small boy's relief as he stared in mute horror at the flames that had changed their lives, the same flames that plunged them wholly into a new world filled with darkness. At four he had become a shield against that darkness, and the baby in his arms, his baby, his brother, his Sam, his responsibility, became the central light. Everything was dimmer without him. Those years apart were all shade and no brightness—indistinct nothing years. Without Sam that gulf that kept him from death, grew narrower and narrower, and less and less important.

In some ways Dean felt like his whole life was a version of the old _Coyote and Roadrunner_ cartoons. In his version he was a coyote, starving and mangy, exhausted and driven by compulsion and obligation…the only things he knew. He'd throw himself into traps he had created. Accidentally, or on purpose? Who fucking knew anymore? He'd run headlong into walls, not caring that the painted tunnels were illusion, or that the approaching train was real. What he was chasing was death, what he hungered for was unnamable. He had fallen so many times, and like the Coyote, sharpist-toothist, had survived despite the odds. Until now.

He was on the edge of a cliff, looking down at a plate full of bird seed, hungrier than any animal should be, and diving towards the brink with wild abandon, coyote feet spinning in mid-air. It was a shitty metaphor, reducing his brother to birdseed? Yeah, it didn't exactly make sense. So, what? Nothing made sense anymore. He needed to know how _this _started; Dean knew that he really meant "the end." How did they begin the end of them?

He swallowed hard. His mouth tasted like cheap cigarettes. He was tingling with nicotine, slowed with liquor. But he couldn't blame his fucked-up feelings on those things because deep down those feelings had always been there: baby smell to severed spine. Mine. Mine, mine, mine, mine, mine.

Sam was three steps away. Sam was his. He took a step back and then walked towards the bed, thunking down hard enough to make the frame squeak in protest. Sam didn't move. He hadn't said a word.

"Dammit, Sammy, get your mind out of the gutter." He joked. "Just…"

"Talk."

"Yeah. Talk."

"I don't wanna talk, Dean."

Well, that was a fucking miracle, but an annoying one. No, he supposed Sam didn't want to talk. Or eat. Or sleep.

"Fine, I'll talk."

"Don't." Sam's voice quavered. He was on the verge of crying or puking. Dean had come to know the signs. "I don't wanna listen either." Sam swallowed audibly. "I thought…"

"What?"

"I thought we were just going to pretend. 'Just be us,' you said."

"Are you so good at pretending, then?" Dean tried not to make his voice bitter. He had wanted to pretend, and for a while it had worked. For a while in the bar, joking with the locals, fending off handsy cougars, it had been any other night in the history of nights. There was no sword of Damocles hanging over his head, no cup of trembling. But when the doors opened, and his feet hit the concrete, and his head hit the night air, and his hand splayed of its own accord across the center of Sam's back, touching that place where the knife had ripped Sam's life from his own regrettable life…the temporary spell of "a normal night" disappeared and another of those threads staying that sword unraveled, and that the cup shook against the lip that held it. Any minute: ker-thunk, ker-plooey—dead coyote.

Dean had been trying to put things in perspective—but ever since the dream, things had been…fucking bizarre. And he couldn't blame anyone but himself, after all hadn't he been the one to instigate things? Entering the dream. Kissing Sam in the dreamt room to knock them both out of that hell-hole of inappropriateness. Then the bar in February; he had reached out first, and then run from the single scariest thing in his terrifying ass life. Those feelings he had squelched so well, that even he didn't know were there…nah, that was a lie. A lie in a string of lies he told himself, things like: they were heroes, there was some reason for everything, that it would all somehow work out just fine. Life was chaos, and he was a boy hardened by loss, but a boy nonetheless, still frightened, still feeling the flames and clutching the one real thing he could: Sam.

Those feelings, unearthed by a kiss, had him dumbfounded. He didn't even know what to call them. Fucking love? Dean loved his car. Loved his father. Loved Cassie, years ago. Loved pie and one night stands and girls who smelled like dollar-store shampoo, warm and coco-nutty and flowery. He loved Sam. Fine. So be it. Fine.

Sam hadn't moved. Hadn't answered. Dean patted the bed, "Just, come here. Sam. Come here."

But there was no movement from the tall, dark shape. "Motherfucker, I just want to talk. We need to go over things, we need to…figure out how things will be from here on out." Still nothing. "Sam, don't make me beg here, come here, talk to me." He laughed at the stupidity of it, and the begging quality softening his voice: pain closing his throat, squeezing it. "Look it, me wanting to talk? Goddamn it, I'm falling to pieces."

He hardly got the last "s" of "pieces" out when Sam bolted out the door, running top speed. The hollow, wood door smacked and bumped against the wall, and Dean followed after him in a graceless stumble. Too late, no sign.

People were filing into the bar next door, music pumping into the night, some Patsy Cline maybe. Off key, anyway. No Sam there. No Sam in the parking lot. He walked to the berm of the road, looked east and west: nothing. But he couldn't have gone far. The stars were dim in the overcast sky, the moon fuzzy and indistinct, less real than the soft glow and stutter of the sunglassed smiling sun that was the Janco Motel's marquis.

Like a good hunter, he listened. At the end of the long, weather-beaten hotel, a low noise he had come to recognize too well.

Even before turning the corner he knew how he'd find Sam, hunched and dry heaving over a puddle of whatever he'd managed to down at the bar. He hadn't expected the blood though. Sam's knuckles, skinned clean on the rough stucco of the hotel, had smeared bright swaths across his cheeks and dripped onto his bare forearms.

"Jesus, Sam."

Sam winced at Dean's voice. He looked like a scared animal: feverish eyes big as moons, focusing on nothing. Sam took a step back and turned his foot, ready to bolt into the narrow gap between the motel and a chain link fence dividing the motel property from a few run-down looking homes.

Dean's arm shot out and grabbed his wrist. "Don't."

Even in the shadow of the building Sam's teeth shone: a white line against his lip, gripping. He would break skin soon. Dean knew what it meant to want the clean pain of something physical, to dominate the blurry pain of emotion and bury it beneath something tangible.

"I said _don't_." Dean sighed and shook his head pulling Sam towards him. "Don't fucking hurt yourself. Just don't." Dean felt wrung out. The only thing that kept him going was Sam. Sam who had beat his hands bloody, wrenched himself out, over and over, with loss. "Sam."

Sam's shoulders hunched forward made him look small, although it seemed impossible for such a big man to look tiny. Dean wanted to be able to scoop Sam into his arms the way he used to: rocking him as he cried, head nestled against Dean's collarbone, drool and snot smearing against his neck. Dean never cared. He'd just rock, petting Sam's fine baby hair, sometimes for hours until the gasping sobs stilled and Sam went slack. Dean reached out his hand to ruffle Sam's hair the way he used to; he wondered if it would feel as baby fine still.

Sam flinched, looked anywhere but at Dean.

"Sam, come on. Let's go back inside. We don't have to talk. We don't have to say a single thing." Dean lifted Sam's wrist towards him, surveyed the damage there. "Fuck, you've made a mess of your knuckles, baby boy. Let me get those fixed up. Let's get you some water, okay? Let's just get back inside. We can…"

Sam's body hit him hard enough to knock the air out. "Uff. You're crushing me, Sam."

Sam's arms threaded around Dean's waist beneath his jacket, and Dean's shoulder blades dug into the wall beneath the weight of him. Sam's cheek was hard against Dean's collarbone when Sam began to cry, his body shaking against Dean's in rhythmic convulsions reminding (again) Dean of Sam as a child. The Sam in the dreamed field, thirteen maybe fourteen years old, had done the same, and Dean had reacted instantly. Shelter, protect, love, stave off what dark may come: these were his duties, these his obligations accepted gladly or as long as he could keep them.

Dean's brain was a booby-trap lately. He could usually turn off the doubt, the memories that reared up, good or bad, out of order to torment him. But lately they wouldn't let him be. A familiar gesture, the movement of Sam's hand cleaning guns, the color of a bedspread, a thread-thin crack in the door-handle of the Impala he had run his fingertip over a thousand times: each thing a spell to conjure ghosts.

Dean lifted his hand to stroke Sam's hair as the sobs became louder, punctuated by huge gulping breaths. Sam. Awkward, teenaged Sam, defiant Sam, fragile Sam as a child with terrified eyes and quivering lip, infant Sam in his own small arms, Sam the hunter, tall and strong and smart: all of them his, all of them overlapping indistinguishable in that moment. Dean closed his eyes, inhaled, felt his chest rise against Sam's, felt the weight of his brother, so familiar, and tried to memorize it.

Sam with his camera had been doing the same: capturing moments, stealing bits of time that could be carried through his life, nothing lost. But, Dean could carry nothing with him where he was going, except what he held inside. This moment now added to the bulk of his days to carry him through whatever may come. They seemed too few, these good moments of oneness.

He opened his eyes, hoping for stars. Above him the sky was overcast. Not a thing to guide them as they bumbled through their last days. _Their_ last days. Soon they'd head to Bobby's. Already Bobby was calling anxious, fighting his own battle against Dean's deal. Dean didn't know what would happen to them under Bobby's observant gaze. Whatever was confused between them now could be chalked up to desperation, maybe. Soldiers sometimes turned to each other for comfort, and weren't they soldiers? How were they not?

He decided then that he didn't care. Nothing would change at Bobby's. They'd pile their grown bodies into a single bed, the way they did as children, huddled against the dark and waiting for their father to arrive again while Bobby played surrogate, kinder and infinitely more patient than their own father, who had closed himself tightly against them.

"Sam. Sam. Sam. Shhhh. Let's go in." He rocked as well as he could with the weight of Sam's body against him. Behind the chain link a porch light flipped on, bathing the area in a pale golden glow. "You know people live back there. Let's get inside. Please?"

Sam made a choked noise and nodded into Dean's shoulder.

The back of Sam's neck was warm beneath the curve of Dean's palm as he led his giant little brother back to door #5. He fished in his pocket for the plastic key fob, grateful he had shoved it into his coat pocket rather than tossing it on the nearest surface in the darkened room. The door creaked open. Another temporary home for another break down, Dean thought. Sam's grip on the sleeve of Dean's jacket reminded him of his father, though he couldn't place why. Had he ever held onto his father's coat this way? Had Sam? No. He would have clung to Dean this way. That's it.

They spent so many days alone. Strange places. New beds. Their father gone for weeks on end, chasing leads they wouldn't learn of until later. Sammy, small and shy, barely talked. Didn't need to really, because Dean had understood every gesture, anticipated everything. Sam did not cling to his father's jacket; he never had.

Dean led the way like a mother hen, and Sammy gripped tight to his sleeve. Dean had felt guilty then for the way Sammy had shied away from their Dad at times, but how could it be helped? Their father was a ghost long before he was dead. They were orphans to circumstance and vengeance. It had cost them their childhood, and any chance at a normal life.

Sam had grown, and in growing grew angry, grew distant, left them both. Dean remembered the sharp pain that came when Sam left, and the bittersweet joy he felt watching Sam from a distance without his knowing. It should have stayed that way, with Dean watching from afar: Sam marrying Jessica, Sam as a father, Sam growing old. Jessica had not been wrong in Sam's dream. Dean could admit that. Had Dean not sought him out he could have maybe gone on living that small, sweet life.

The deal Dean made was a chance to return part of that life to Sam. Jessica was gone, but the rest could still be claimed. He could go. He'd meet some other girl and settle down, have three kids and a fucking cherry life. Without Dean, Sam would have a chance to reclaim what was taken.

Dean hadn't realized how tight Sam would grip in his sorrow.

The key turned in the lock and Dean led the way.

When there was a task to be done, he moved on auto-pilot, focusing on small steps. One: sit Sam down. Two: flip on the light. Three: two fingers of cheap whiskey in a plastic cup. Four: a bottle of water from the mini-fridge. Five: wipe the blood from Sam's cheeks. Six: wipe away the tears. He was on his knees, dabbing at Sam's busted knuckles with a worn-thin washcloth and an ice bucket full of warm, soapy water when Sam stopped crying long enough to speak.

"Dean?" Dean looked up at Sam's face fringed in shadow, his lips bitten and raw looking, "Remember when you said as long as you were around nothing bad would happen to me?"

"Yes." Of course Dean remembered. He had said it over and over his whole life.

"You won't be around."

It happened just like that. This is how _it _started. The it wasn't sex, it wasn't a crossed line they couldn't uncross:_ it_ was the end. And it happened in the goddamn Janco motel, of all places. Dean broke.

Twenty seconds later, shamelessly, desperately, Sam was rocking him on the dirty floor, smoothing his hair while Dean's chest filled with desperate dread, while Dean babbled out apologies for his life. Sam whispering, "I will save you. I will save you, or I will tear you out of hell myself. You will not leave me. Nothing will take you from me. I will save you." Over and over. Sam pressing kisses to Dean's face: his eyelids, his cheeks, his temples, his lips. Sam maneuvering them onto the bed like Dean weighed nothing. Sam maneuvered him without resistance, peeling off the layers of their clothes while Dean sobbed.

Sam saying, "Nothing between us. Nothing," as their limbs tangled. Dean felt drunk, twisted, frantic. His hand covering the tattoo on Sam's chest. Sam's mouth pressed to the tattoo on Dean's. The tears wouldn't stop. Sam crying too now as their bodies pressed together, skin to skin, naked as the day they were born.

"You are mine," Sam whispered into Dean's ear. "Say it."

"Yours."

"I am yours. Say it."

"You are mine. Sam you are mine."

Ownership.

Their mouths met with a clash of teeth on teeth, so hard Dean saw stars. Time pulled like taffy. How long since I breathed? Dean thought, with his thumb resting on Sam's hipbone, his fingers splayed wide across the small of Sam's back. He moved he moved his hand up, felt for the scar, that slick, pale, purpled, starburst of skin that had cost them each so much. He desperately wanted to taste it. He wanted to drag his tongue along it tracing its borders. He wondered if it would taste like metal. He wondered if it would taste like tears. He wondered if it would taste like the skin of Sam's shoulder, where his mouth now moved carelessly. Would it taste of Sam's knuckles: sharp, salt, blood?

Then, Sam's tongue in his mouth again. Sam's hands on his biceps hard enough to bruise. Let them. He'd walk through his last days with his brother's handprints on his body. He'd be dragged into hell marked up with love.

"I love you. I love you. I love you." Sam's voice between frantic kisses repeated over and over again. Dean's head was swimming with love, swimming with sorrow. He hadn't wanted this. He didn't know what he wanted. Sam.

"Sam." His name a prayer. He was worth dying for. Dean would die over and over, he knew. This could carry him through years. This moment. "I love you. Sam. I love you."

"I love you. I love you."

And just like that, they fell apart again, sobbing wildly in one another's arms.

In the morning Dean woke, with Sam's body pressed against him, a sheen of sleep-sweat over the two of them. He clicked his teeth together and stared down at Sam's face, slack against his chest. They had to get to Bobby's. They had to fix this.

Dean's dreams had been filled with terror for weeks, but last night there was only love. Sam a bright light, a star, a fire, a flame calling him back to this world. They could stop it. They could do anything.

Sam shifted and stretched his body against Dean's, and Dean reached out to stroke his hair once more. For a second he felt a wave of embarrassment rise up, a wave of shame, but it passed quickly. He pressed the palm of his hand flat against the scar where Jake's blade had ripped, momentarily, his life from his life.

No fucking rest for the wicked, Dean thought. They'd have to rise soon. He'd shake Sam awake, tenderly. They'd gather their things and head out, in near silence, still clinging to insubstantial hopes.

* * *

><p>Hugo, Victor. <em>Postscript of my Life<em>. Trans. Lorenzo O'Rourke. London: Funk and Wagnalls, 1907.

_Supernatural_. CW. WNUV, Baltimore. 2005-2011.


	8. Chapter 8

Title: Polaris  
>Author: James Parker Lombard<br>Rating M: Language, Wincest-ish? (Dean/Sam)  
>SpoilersSet: Season 3 Ep.16 "No Rest for the Wicked" to Season 4 Ep. 1 "Lazarus Rising"  
>Characters: Dean and Sam Winchester (Chapter Eight; Sam POV)<br>Word Count: 1,523  
>Summary: It was a Tuesday, or a Wednesday, who cares when there's no reason to keep track of time?<p>

For TwinchesterAngel and Paperstorm…DONE! (I'm sorry it took so long.)

**Polaris**

* * *

><p>"The Wrong we have Done, Thought, or Intended Will wreak its Vengeance on<br>Our SOULS."― C.G. Jung, from "West and East."

* * *

><p>Dean lay beneath the earth with finality. Sam refused to burn him. Dean would need his body, after all.<p>

The research doesn't stop. Sam buries himself in books, reads until his eyes cross, and the words swim off the page. Bobby wakes him, tries to get him to go to bed. The answer is always no. "I will get him back, Bobby." There's a spell. There's a path in. There's a way out.

By the end of the first week Sam is delirious. No rest for the wicked. His hands shake from the caffine. Bobby pleading with him, "You have to sleep. You'll kill yourself like this."

Sam wants to say, "good."

Every time Sam closes his eyes, he dreams of blood on his hands: dark and sticky, drying in the fine lines of his knuckles. When he dreams, he dreams of setting fire to the field, to the hotel, to the whole fucking world. And some nights, there in the flames he sees his brother with a look of pity and want, but he can never reach him.

It is a Tuesday or a Wednesday, when Sam awakes stretched on Dean's grave, his hands torn to shreds from digging in the gravely dirt, blood drying in the fine lines of his knuckles. He remembered none of it: not the Impala, parked at the edge of the gravel road, not the road itself, or when he had arrived, not his sad failed attempt to reach what remained of Dean. His body carried him to his brother as he slept.

It is a Tuesday or a Wednesday when he leaves Bobby's house in the pre-dawn light. He doesn't say goodbye. He is tired of goodbyes. He finds a hotel, drinks himself blind and dreams of blood drying in the fine lines of his knuckles. Every end has been a dead end.

Ruby walks in on one of his many low points in the body of a blonde secretary, trying to prove that she's on his side. She admits she can't bring Dean back, but though she can't bring Dean back she offers him revenge. He chokes back tears, unwilling to let her see the effect Dean's name has on him, and refuses.

Four days later she shows up in the body of a petite brunette, with a death certificate to "prove" she's not hijacked someone else's life, and starts to chip away at his resolve.

It is a Tuesday or a Wednesday, four weeks after Dean dies, when Sam finds an SD card taped to a page in the journal. He can't even bring himself to touch it. He walks to a bar, and drinks himself courageous.

Five hours later Sam is looking at Dean staring into the camera, jittery, unsure, even his ears are blushing.

"This is my confession…"

And Sam can't breathe. Dean is in their room, sitting on their bed in Bobby's house. The camera is on the dresser that has always been there, the dresser where they secretly carved their names as children. Sam can almost feel the letters of Dean's name beneath the lip of the right-hand drawer.

"If there were moments in my life that I could change, saving you would never be one of them. I need you to know that. I will always, always, choose you. There is no price I would not pay for your life. So, you have to survive this. You have to. You think I don't know, or understand, that I don't watch everything you do, you're wrong. I love you beyond words, beyond sense, beyond myself, and I know you can survive what I couldn't. You can live without me. My life began and ended loving you, only you, always you. And I know you think I'm cruel and selfish, and I am, but I'm not that cruel, not that selfish. It would be crueler to leave you…"

Sam cannot stop crying. He fans his fingers across the screen of his laptop, covering his brother's tears for him. Dean is crying. His voice is breaking, softening. He sounds so young. He died so young.

"… more selfish to take what I wanted from you, and walk away. You make things so difficult, you push so hard, and if you think I don't want the same things you want, well you're wrong. Right now you are downstairs, right now you are trying everything to save me. I can still smell you on my skin and it hurts. When you come in this door tonight, I'll try to resist everything you are, _everything_ you are to me, but why? We'll fit ourselves in this stupid tiny bed and I'll hold on until I can't hold on. I try so hard to keep you at arm's length because I'm afraid I might destroy you. But I'm weak. If you asked now, I'd give you all of me, Sam. Every bit. You know I'd pour my blood out on the ground for you, I'd die a thousand times, suffer a thousand torments, and I'm sorry."

Dean is looking away now. Dean is crumpling in on himself. Dean is sobbing like a child. Sam watches him fall apart and feels the heart ripped out of him. No. Dean is dead.

"The truth is I love you too much. You are my north star, my Polaris. The only light that guides me. I won't let you burn out. And if there is some way back to you from where I'm going, I will find it, and my love for you will guide me back. Hell can't keep you from me."

"So?

Dean is wiping his eyes with the cuff of his shirt. Dean is smiling a little half smile. Dean is wringing his left hand in the covers. No. Dean is dead.

"…This is my confession. I, Dean Winchester, have had impure thoughts…a lot of them, but that's not what this is about…I love you Sammy. I love you. Forgive me? I could not live without my world."

Dean is standing. Dean is walking towards the camera. Click. No. Dean is dead.

Sam throws up what little he's eaten into the trashcan by the bed, and starts the file again.

"…. I can still smell you on my skin and it hurts…

"...If you asked now, I'd give you all of me, Sam…

"…I love you too much."

Sam watches again and again: cataloging all the subtle emotions, zeroing in, memorizing him.

It was a Tuesday or a Wednesday, who cares when there's no reason to keep track of time? Sam was halfway through a bottle of Old Grand-dad, and had made his decision when Ruby walked in and took his gun away.

"Sam, you don't want this." The look of pity on her face was enraging.

"It's like a rule, right? I kill myself I go to hell."

"Sam, not this way."

"But I can have Dean. I can go. Just, I'm tired. I just want to go. I need him, Ruby. I love him."

"Well, duh. Everybody can kinda see that." She puts her hand on his shoulder. "Now, I'm no fan of Dean, but I do respect him. Fucker does what he sets his mind to. This is not what he would want for you."

"I can't do what he wants."

"You can. You love him? Avenge him."

There is hate in Sam's heart, bright as a fire, when he says, "Ruby, make me strong."

He loses track of the days after that. They bleed into one another. There is blood in his mouth. Every drop makes him stronger. There is demon blood drying in the fine lines of his knuckles, and he licks them clean.

Every demon he kills is one less demon to torment his brother. Every dead, evil, son of a bitch, is another thorn in Lilith's side, another obstacle he has overcome. The road to Dean is paved with their fizzling flesh.

It is a Tuesday or a Wednesday night; he is so tired and defeated that he succumbs to more than just blood. Ruby's skin is something far shy of comfort. It leaves him dirty, soiled, filthy. Between the blood, and the sex he's so dirty he knows he'll never be clean, or worthy of Dean's love again. But Dean is gone. So he succumbs. And when she leaves he drinks himself leagues beyond maudlin, he drinks himself suicidal again.

Five weeks later there is a knock at the door.

* * *

><p>Jung, C. G. <em>The Collected Works of C.G. Jung, volume 11: Psychology and Religion: West and East<em>. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2014. 179.

Thanks to everyone for bearing with me. This was a tough story to write.


End file.
